LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Blockdaemon, the leading institutional-grade blockchain infrastructure company for node management and staking, today announced a strategic investment in StakeWise, a liquid staking protocol on Ethereum, as they together build the world’s first Eth2 liquid staking solution for financial institutions and large tech companies. boldstart ventures, a VC fund focused on day one investments into developer first and crypto infrastructure startups, will also participate in the investment into StakeWise.
“Blockdaemon is thrilled to partner with StakeWise to create a KYC-based liquid staking solution for Institutional customers,” said Konstantin Richter, CEO and founder of Blockdaemon. “By building an institutional-grade liquid staking product on the Ethereum network, we are opening avenues for clients with demanding compliance requirements to utilize staked capital for borrowing, lending, option writing, liquidity provision and much more.”
The new liquid staking solution is targeted at financial institutions and big tech companies with strict compliance requirements which are still seeking exposure to yields offered by staking Ethereum & utilizing staked capital in DeFi. A range of institutional customers have already expressed interest in using the product, which is set to launch at the end of 2Q 2022. The launch of testnet, an alternative Bitcoin blockchain used for testing, and the first validators is this week. This will give prospective customers the chance to test out the features in a safe, early environment ahead of the mainnet launch.
“Institutional involvement in DeFi was the expected next phase, so by providing an institutional-grade product, we are able to feed new revenues back to the permissionless system to accelerate the development and innovation in the space,” said Kirill Kutakov, co-founder of StakeWise. “By joining forces with Blockdaemon, the leading infrastructure provider for institutions, we can offer a seamless experience for clients looking for compliant ways to participate in DeFi and earn yield securely.”
The protocol will feature a permissioned staked ETH token, meaning only whitelisted (read: KYCd) addresses will be able to interact with it. The token representation of staked ETH is a prerequisite to opening customers access to permissioned DeFi protocols that offer lending/borrowing capabilities, call & put options writing, interest rate swaps, and other innovations that enhance the efficiency of staked capital.
The core technology for the new protocol will be provided by StakeWise, with Blockdaemon initially acting as the sole node operator. The protocol will be governed by its own set of stakeholders, outside of StakeWise governance processes. Still, the StakeWise DAO will retain the economic benefits of providing code for the new protocol since a significant share of the new product’s revenue will flow directly to the StakeWise DAO Treasury.
To facilitate a closer alignment of interests in the new venture with its strategic partners, StakeWise will receive an investment into SWISE from Blockdaemon and boldstart. The transaction will not affect the community’s share of SWISE ownership in the protocol.
“StakeWise continues to innovate and advance ways to earn yield and has the opportunity to extend their services for institutional clientele via their partnership with Blockdaemon,” said Ed Sim, founder and managing partner at boldstart ventures. “It’s a breakthrough opportunity, as the need for secure, compliant liquidity options grows with Ethereum and can lead to massive benefits for customers and the ecosystem overall.”
To participate and inquire about early access, visit https://blockdaemon.com/liquid-staking/.
About Blockdaemon
Blockdaemon is the leading independent blockchain node infrastructure to stake, scale, and deploy nodes with institutional-grade security and monitoring. Supporting 50+ cutting edge blockchain networks in the cloud and on bare metal servers globally, Blockdaemon is used by exchanges, custodians, crypto platforms, financial institutions and developers to connect commercial stakeholders to blockchains. We power the blockchain economy by simplifying the process of deploying nodes and creating scalable enterprise blockchain solutions via APIs, high availability clusters, auto-decentralization and auto-healing of nodes. For more information, please visit https://blockdaemon.com/.
About boldstart ventures
boldstart ventures is a day one partner and true believer for developer first, crypto infra and SaaS founders. We collaborate with technical founders well before company creation, lead pre-product rounds at inception, and rally our network to help turn bold ideas into category-creating iconic companies. We’ve been in the trenches with Snyk, Blockdaemon, Kustomer, BigID, Superhuman (and so many more) from day one. See more about us and our full portfolio @ www.boldstart.vc and @boldstartvc
About StakeWise
StakeWise is a liquid staking protocol on Ethereum enabling any Ether holder to earn a passive yield by staking without capital lock-up. All deposited & earned Ether is tokenized with StakeWise tokens in a 1:1 ratio, allowing users to exit from staking at any time, earn extra yield on their stake in DeFi, and flexibly manage their staking rewards. Launched in March 2021, StakeWise has accumulated over 50,000 ETH in deposits from retail customers to date and attracted over $100 million of liquidity for its staked assets. The protocol is backed by Blockdaemon, Boldstart, Collider Ventures, Greenfield One, Gumi Cryptos and Lionschain Capital.