This Week in DeFi - January 14

This week, NEAR raises $150m, Polygon Zero debuts Plonky ZK advancement, 0x API on Optimism, and DeFi Alliance is now Alliance DAO

Jan 14

To the DeFi community,

This week, NEAR protocol raised $150 million in a round led by Three Arrows Capital. Funds will go towards developing NEAR’s regional hubs in increasing brand awareness, as well as funding various ecosystem projects.

NEAR Blockchain @NEAR_Blockchain

📣 @NEARProtocol raises $150M to boost ecosystem growth! 🔥 #NEAR has announced the close of a $150 million funding round led by @zhusu's Three Arrow Capital. Participants included @MechanismCap, @a16z, @dragonfly_cap, #Alameda and many more. Learn 🔽 medium.com/nearprotocol/n…

NEAR Raises $150M To Help Accelerate Mass Adoption of Web3NEAR Raises $150M from 3AC, Alameda, Mechanism, Dragonfly, a16z, Jump, Alameda, Zee Prime, Folius, Amber, 6th Man Ventures, Circle, MetaWeb.vc, Alan Howard, Santiago Santos and Aave Founder Stani Kulechovmedium.com

Polygon Zero introduced Plonky 2, a major milestone in the ZK scaling race that seeks to provide scaling increases to Ethereum and L2s without compromising security. The Plonky 2 implementation delivers a 100x increase in speed of processing batch ZK transactions and works natively with Ethereum; while transactions are expensive, the optimization marks a major step forward in continuing to scale the Ethereum ecosystem.

Polygon | $MATIC 💜 @0xPolygon

1/5 Proud to present #Plonky2 - the world's fastest ZK scaling technology, built by @0xPolygonZero! 💫 Plonky2 is a recursive SNARK that is 100x faster than existing alternatives and natively compatible with #Ethereum. A 🧵 on why this is exciting…

The 0x API is live on Optimism with launch partners including Matcha, Set Protocol, and others, making 0x one of the most accessible asset swapping protocols in the DeFi ecosystem today. Optimism joins Polygon, Avalanche, BSC, Fantom, and Celo in platforms that offer the 0x API.

Optimism @optimismPBC

Big if true (hint: it's true). 0x API is a critical middleware protocol that enables value to flow freely in the token economy. We couldn't be more pleased to have this important DEX infrastructure on Optimism and we can't wait to see what gets built with it.

0x @0xProject

(1) 0x API is now live on @OptimismPBC! 0x API is DEX infrastructure for the internet, and today we are excited to bring the experience our integrators know and love to Optimism. https://t.co/OxF20M2Fg2

And the DeFi Alliance accelerator rebranded to Alliance DAO after raising $50 million from more than 300 Web3 aficionados across DeFi, gaming, and more. Alliance DAO will initially continue to offer monetary and mentorship support for Web3 startups, with the aim to add governance, liquidity, recruiting and marketing support over time. Alliance DAO has supported seven cohorts of DeFi startups, with applications now open for cohort eight.

P◎rt Finance @port_finance

It's been incredible to be part of the Alliance cohort. Can't wait to see what @alliancedao can do for founders! 🔥

Alliance is hiring @alliancedao

1) 📢 Announcing Alliance DAO 📢 DeFi Alliance and hundreds of other top builders are coming together to form Alliance, the world's first digital startup nation, to accelerate the best Web3 startups. https://t.co/Tp2Ms38yBB https://t.co/DklY5akJQK

Another week, another major ecosystem player going DAO. It’s likely to be an increasingly common trend as the tenants of decentralization and shared ownership continue to cross the chasm from ideas online to organizing principles in the real world.

Alliance DAO has already had a massive impact on the rapid development of DeFi protocols, providing financial and administrative support, as well as critical guidance for navigating an emerging industry on the periphery of some of the most regulated activities humanity engages in today. This impact, and the growth of the network associated with Alliance make the transition to a DAO structure even more exciting, as it dramatically ramps the resources and expertise that will be devoted to working out the thorny issues of making DAOs work as well offline as they do on Discord. Issues like compensation, dispute resolution, hiring and firing (if necessary at all), legal representation, taxation, and many more will now have the force of one of the most experienced Web3 pioneer organizations actively working to provide modern, decentralized solutions.

After really getting started in 2020 (with a few earlier examples), the transition to DAOs has been remarkably swift, even by crypto standards. There should be little doubt that 2022 will be the year DAOs make their break into mainstream consciousness. There’s bound to be opposition and push back, but the bottom up nature of such frameworks have already shown an incredible ability to attract high-skill talent and masses of supporters. DAOs are set to keep on surprising in 2022 and beyond. Stay tuned!

Thanks to our partner:

Nexo – Unlock the power of your crypto with up to 17% interest and borrowing starting at 6.9%. Read our Nexo review.