Vega, a protocol for creating and trading derivatives on a fully decentralized network, announced today it has closed a $5 million seed funding round.
The funding was led by Pantera Capital, the strategic investment included additional support from Xpring (Ripple), NGC Ventures, Hashed, gumi Cryptos Capital, Rockaway Blockchain, KR1, Eden Block, Focus Labs, Greenfield One, Monday Capital, as well as RSK Ecosystem Fund.
Striving towards a more inclusive capital market through decentralized finance, Vega’s protocol design restructures the trillions of dollars per day derivatives markets, to run automatically over peer-to-peer networks, equipped with investment bank-grade risk management processes.
“While the wave of decentralized finance has grown in exuberance, Vega is unique in challenging the long-held dynamics within the existing market, proposing a far more equitable, open, and balanced financial ecosystem. With decentralized margined products, we see that the strenuous layers within a traditional marketplace are broken down, and access is distributed on a more equal basis. United by a common vision, we’re excited to partner Vega in their growth as the next phase of the global economy kicks into gear.”
– Roger Lim, Founding Partner of NGC Ventures
A layer-2 solution designed to avoid the performance and market fairness problems associated with decentralized markets built on layer-1 blockchains like Ethereum or Bitcoin, Vega’s key features include: a fully automated end-to-end trading system that dramatically cuts operational overheads versus traditional trading operations; a protocol that incentivizes market creators and market makers with significant rewards from fees paid by other participants for launching liquid markets; a bespoke sidechain optimized for trading, with 10-100x faster execution than similar protocols on general-purpose blockchains; as well as a framework for creating and customizing products that give every participant the freedom to build new financial instruments and markets.
“We support the right to collaborate and trade freely. Privileged institutions and gatekeepers have for too long kept the financial system rigid and rigged in their favor. It is neither desirable nor necessary for market participants to be subject to profiteering, monitoring, and control by those privileged institutions.”
– Barney Mannerings, founder and shareholder of Vega Holdings Limited
At present, Vega is focused on completing and testing the first version of the core protocol. The team is also launching community-focused initiatives to engage developers, traders, and ecosystem partners. The first private test network demonstrating margin trading with test assets is expected to launch imminently, and expand into a publicly available testnet soon after.
