Alameda Research, a crypto-asset trading & investment firm, today announced it has led a $40 million investment round in Oxygen, a decentralized prime brokerage protocol. The investment round will be joined by Multicoin, Genesis Capital, and CMS.
The Oxygen protocol will integrate into MAPS.ME bringing a potential user base of more than 100 million into the liquid DeFi Serum ecosystem.
“Oxygen will be the most sophisticated and elegant risk management tool in DeFi – with a strong team, growing ecosystem, and large potential user base, we believe this is the next step in mass adoption of DeFi,” said Sam Bankman-Fried, advisor to Serum and Oxygen.
Prime brokerages facilitate leveraged trading and asset lending for banks, wealth management firms, and hedge funds. Oxygen believes these tools should no longer be limited to institutions.
“We are excited to take the next step in decentralizing finance, using the Oxygen protocol to offer prime brokerage services that cater to the needs of DeFi applications, financial institutions, and individual users,” said Alex Grebnev, Co-Founder of Oxygen.
“Oxygen will create a more democratized financial system where anyone can lend, borrow or trade portfolios of digital assets in one place,” added Viktor Mangazeev, Co-Founder of Oxygen.
Oxygen + Serum
Oxygen will launch on the fast-growing Serum decentralized exchange which runs on Solana’s scalable and low-cost blockchain. Solana currently processes up to 50,000 transactions per second with each transaction costing $0.00001, with plans to further scale these capabilities.
Oxygen.org AG is based in Switzerland, which is recognized as an advanced jurisdiction for distributed ledger technology. Oxygen works with a Big Four audit firm and with leading international legal advisers to ensure asset safety and regulatory compliance.
As the industry grapples with network transaction fees hitting all-time highs, Oxygen aims to become a universally adopted on-chain prime brokerage with the capacity to support activity akin to that of Goldman Sachs and US exchanges combined.
“DeFi could reach 1 billion users and $10T of on-chain value. But projects have been limited by high fees, congestion, and scalability issues. Composability on Solana means that any application building on DeFi can automatically integrate every other one as if it was native. Oxygen will fill an important role in Serum’s financial ecosystem,” said Sam Bankman-Fried.
Oxygen will first offer borrow-lending services via pools, in which users will deposit their assets and leverage Serum’s on-chain infrastructure to lend according to their desired terms. Users can also simultaneously lend to generate yield while borrowing against their portfolios. Borrowers can also utilize multiple asset types in their portfolio as collateral, helping to manage their risk.
The protocol’s services will be embedded into the MAPS.ME wallet, ultimately enabling its users to earn passive income and bringing greater liquidity and strength to the Serum decentralized exchange ecosystem. Alameda Research and Genesis Trading will also be active on the protocol.
Later phases of development on Oxygen will explore the possibility of launching volatility trading and tools that empower users to create their own structured products on-chain.
OXY Token
Oxygen is powered by the OXY token, which will allow users to govern the Oxygen protocol and to benefit from 100% of Oxygen’s net revenues.
OXY will be available via an Initial Exchange Offering (IEO) on Thursday, March 11th, and will list on FTX, BitMax, and Serum DEX on Tuesday, March 16th.
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