0x Labs, the agency behind a decentralized change (DEX) protocol and the ZRX token, has closed a $15 million Collection A fairness spherical led by Pantera Capital.
“We view 0x Labs as a holistic funding within the DEX house,” 0x’s Clay Robbins instructed CoinDesk in a cellphone name.
Further members within the spherical included Leap Capital, Blockchain Ventures, Coinbase Ventures and others.
The brand new spherical comes off the profitable launching of 0x’s DEX router, Matcha, which got here out in June and has processed $2.7 billion in orders. “The important thing factor we’re targeted on is growth of Matcha globally,” Robbins stated.
The funds will even be used to additional construct out 0x Labs’ buying and selling desk enterprise, Periscope Buying and selling; the professional-grade aggregation service, 0x API (which underlies choices from corporations resembling ShapeShift, MetaMask and Zapper); and furthering its work on the underlying open-source protocol.
Which approach did he go?
0x Labs presents its merchandise with out charges as a result of they drive utilization of the underlying 0x protocol and its ZRX token. Since model 3.0 of the 0x protocol, the ZRX token has turn into one thing market makers can stake with the intention to earn liquidity rewards. Total, the protocol has seen $15 billion in buying and selling quantity, in line with the corporate.
“In combination because the launch of those mechanics just a little over 1,000,000 {dollars} has been remitted to those holders. That presently represents a few 10% APY [annual percentage yield],” Robbins stated.
As buying and selling now drives worth to the ZRX token, that is still 0x Labs core enterprise mannequin. Because the creators of the 0x initial coin offering (ICO), the corporate stays a major holder of ZRX.
ZRX was final noteworthy in decentralized finance (DeFi) circles within the early days of COMP liquidity mining, when it was a giant gainer for staking and borrowing on Compound’s cash market. A lot in order that governance moved to really change the rules round how COMP returns had been disbursed.
The token appears to be coming into its personal, although. ZRX, like many different DeFi tokens, has seen outsize gains in current weeks. Su Zhu of Three Arrows Capital has argued it is because the market is realizing that these tokens characterize actual worth being added out there:
Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match
Routing DeFi transactions is a tough factor, like deciding which path to take via a busy metropolis. You’ve got to choose however there’s no solution to know you made the suitable one.
0x tried to present customers confidence that its proprietary routing software program is worthy of their belief by working numerous transactions throughout totally different routing protocols to match outcomes. A 0x Labs report from October contends that 0x’s routing structure delivered the most effective total worth seven instances out of 10.
The one factor Robbins stated that 0x shouldn’t be engaged on with this new spherical is a brand new token. It’s not going to do an airdrop of a Matcha token to previous customers, like its competitor 1inch did in December, or launch a liquidity mining program to draw prospects.
“We really feel it could be considerably redundant and pointless so as to add a Matcha-specific token on condition that the protocol already has ZRX,” Robbins stated.
