Multicoin Capital leads a $225 million funding round for Wormhole, a leading multi-chain solution with over $41 billion in assets and 30 chains focused on user experience and zero-knowledge verification technology.
Multicoin Capital, a well-known venture capital firm specializing in blockchain and cryptocurrency investments, revealed its involvement as a co-lead investor in a $225 million funding round for Wormhole, a key player in the multichain space. The funding round was completed late last year, but was only officially announced now, coinciding with the launch of Wormhole’s native token, the W token.
Wormhole is widely recognized for its full-stack interoperability platform that goes beyond just being a bridge. It serves as a development platform that allows different applications in different categories to use its capabilities. These include multi-chain decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and applications such as Aave, Circle USDC, Hashflow, Pike and Magpie, as well as multi-chain governance solutions such as Uniswap. Wormhole also supports token bridges, multi-chain oracle channels, wallet bridges, and multi-chain non-fungible tokens (NFTs), among others.
The variety of applications built on top of Wormhole is a major factor that excites Multicoin Capital. Despite its early stage, Wormhole has already facilitated the transfer of over $41 billion in assets. This achievement, combined with its support for nearly 30 different circuits, positions Wormhole as an extremely stable and flexible bridge solution. The platform is compatible with the main Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains, as well as Near, Move-based and Solana chains.
Wormhole’s commitment to providing exceptional user experience (UX) is evident in its offerings. One of its key use cases is asset linking, which is facilitated through interfaces such as Portal. In addition, Wormhole Connect, a front-end widget developed by Wormhole, simplifies accepting deposits and withdrawals from any asset on any chain. This feature allows decentralized derivatives exchanges (DEX) like Drift to offer UX comparable to centralized exchanges (CEX) like Binance, OKX, Bybit and Coinbase International. Users can easily deposit any asset into Drift as collateral, regardless of the chain it originates from. This frictionless cross-chain UX sets Wormhole apart in the industry.
Wormhole recently introduced Native Token Transfers (NTT), a framework that allows tokens to move seamlessly across chains using a burn and mint mechanism instead of the traditional locking mechanism. This innovation lowers gas costs, lowers latency and improves security for end users. In particular, NTT-enabled tokens integrate seamlessly with Wormhole Connect, eliminating the need for users and app developers to worry about the underlying mechanics.
Another notable feature of Wormhole is its support for Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), which allows movement of USDC between chains. Supporting asset pinning, native token transfer, and CCTP, Wormhole covers all three configurations for moving assets between chains. Its unified software development kit (SDK) makes it easy for developers to integrate and support all asset configurations.
Looking forward, Wormhole is fully committed to improving verification processes in connecting systems. Historically, bridging systems have relied on varying degrees of trust to facilitate multichain verification. Wormhole, however, takes a different approach. The platform recently announced its focus on zero-knowledge (ZK) verification technology, aiming to remove the need for trust in the verification process. The move will bring numerous benefits, including an improved user interface, developer experience (DevEx) and overall security.
Multicoin Capital expressed its admiration for the Wormhole team, praising their meticulous approach in building what they say is the leading multi-chain asset bridge and development platform. The company is confident in Wormhole’s potential and is grateful for the opportunity to support the team’s vision.
In conclusion, Multicoin Capital’s investment in Wormhole signifies the growing importance of secure and flexible interoperability platforms in the crypto industry. With Wormhole’s diverse range of applications, extensive chain support, commitment to UX, and adoption of ZK verification technology, the platform is well positioned to push the multi-chain revolution forward.
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