Quick take:
- Dragonfly put in $14 million to the round, according to general partner Rob Hadick.
- The round was structured as equity with warrants to receive tokens of Codex’s yet-to-be-released token.
- Codex plans to use the funds to build a layer-2 stablecoin-focused blockchain on top of Optimism.
Codex has raised $15.8 million in a seed round led by Dragonfly Capital. The Fundraising also attracted participation from Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, Cumberland, Wintermute, and Selini Capital.
According to Dragonfly partner Rob Hadick, his firm put in $14 million to the round. The funding was structured as equity with warrants for tokens of Codex’s yet-to-be-released token, Fortune reported.
The funds will go towards the development of a stablecoin-focused layer-2 blockchain on Optimism.
Co-founded by the 30-year-old CEO Haonan Li with Victor Yaw and Momo Ong, Codex’s fundraising success arrives at a time when stablecoins are the buzz of the crypto industry, with the likes of Stripe recently making a $1 billion acquisition to strategically position for the next growth phase in the space.
Li and Co’s decision to build on top of Optimism, which aims to reduce the costs and speed up transactions on Ethereum, is no surprise, as he previously worked with the layer-2 network, helping launch Optimism’s native token OP.
Explaining why his company is building a specialised blockchain for stablecoins, Li told Fortune: “[General purpose blockchains] want to address as large of a market as possible, and so they end up addressing none of the particular industry segments all that well.”
According to Li, his layer-2 blockchain is optimised for stablecoins from the ground up, which is why he believes it will be competitive in the market.
Codex’s L2 features, among others, stable fees for sending stablecoins and built-in off-ramps or relationships with crypto exchanges and local brokers to facilitate fiat cashouts. The company is also working on a feature that enables users to make certain parts of their transactions confidential, Li said.
