Quick take:
- Ethena plans to use the funds to launch a similar token to ENA aimed at traditional financial institutions.
- According to a Bloomberg report, a foundation supporting the project sold ENA tokens at 40 US cents in December, but the funding has yet to be announced.
- Leading Web3 VCs Dragonfly Capital Partners, Polychain Capital LP and Pantera Capital Management LP also joined the round.
Ethena has raised $100 million in an ENA private token sale backed by leading asset management firm Franklin Templeton and Fidelity Investments’ venture arm F-Prime Capital. The fundraising also attracted participation from popular Web3 venture firms Dragonfly Capital Partners, Polychain Capital LP and Pantera Capital Management LP.
According to Bloomberg, which cited a person familiar with the matter, a foundation backing the Ethena project sold ENA tokens at 40 USD cents in December, but the fundraising was never announced.
The company plans to use the new capital to fund a token similar to ENA but focused on traditional financial institutions.
Ethena has emerged as one of the biggest blockchain companies. According to Coingecko data, its “synthetic dollar” token USDe has a circulation of more than $6 billion, while the ENA token boasts a market cap of $1.268 billion.
The report comes out barely a month after Ethena Labs founder Guy Young said in a blog post that the project would soon roll out iUSDe, a token focused on regulated financial institutions.
According to Young, the token has certain transfer restrictions. Ethena chose to primarily focus on working with finance distribution partners to enable their clients to access iUSDe, which enables traditional finance to interact with the token without ever having to touch crypto rails.
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