“The next generation of DeFi players will be institutions that actively look for ways to enter the crypto market in a secure and compliant manner without sacrificing their ability to respond to economic opportunities, ” said Anthony Foy, CEO of Qredo.

Qredo uses a novel blockchain protocol that enables users to access cryptocurrencies on Layer 1 blockchains, such as Bitcoin, and Ethereum over a Layer 2 network. This innovation allows users to securely participate in new DeFi innovations such as accessing ‘cross-chain’ liquidity pools, trading collateralized derivatives, and executing cross-chain atomic swaps.

This funding will fuel the next stage of Qredo’s growth, which includes doubling its R&D team and bringing in additional world-class talent at the C-suite level, and Qredo’s anticipated version 2 launch. With version 2, Qredo will move closer to achieving its goal of transitioning to a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). Qredo version 1 mainnet is live today and the company operates 24 nodes in 6 tier 4 data centers: Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, New York, Chicago and London. The successful release of version 1 has allowed Qredo to build, test and operate, prior to transitioning to version 2 decentralisation. Validators on version 2 are able to earn QRDO governance tokens as incentives, through a revenue-sharing mechanism within the network.

“We are excited to see Qredo bring better speed, security and compliance into DeFi and provide a new way for institutions to interact with crypto on terms they are familiar with,” said Alex Mashinsky, investor and CEO of Celsius Network.

Investors include: Amnis Ventures, Artus, Borderless Capital, Celsius, CMS Holdings, Connect.Capital, Deribit, G1, GSR, Gumi Cryptos, Kenetic, Kronos, Maven 11, 1kx, Quantstamp, Q-Stone Partners, Spartan Group, SVK Crypto, Tokentus, 3commas, Wintermute, Yellow and Zhou Holdings.