By
Steve Muchoki
April 17th, 2024
The Centrifuge protocol has ushered in a new category of Total Value Locked (TVL) growth, bordering on introducing real-world asset (RWA) TVL.
Centrifuge, one of the first protocols to connect DeFi to the real world has completed its public token sale on CoinList, adding an army of backers to help push its agenda. The token sale which was announced earlier in the month comes as one of the innovative projects that have pulled new funding from CoinList this year, reaffirming investor’s growing interest in DeFi protocols with unique solutions.
Investing in presales is one of the key ways of investing in the blockchain ecosystem with opportunities for guaranteed returns upon listing. These investment options are quite popular in countries whose economies are paled or hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic.
As peculiar to CoinList, the Centrifuge token sale is oversubscribed with as many as 600,000 registrants recorded for a space of about 36,000. According to the jingle on its Twitter handle, the firm launched its mainnet about a year ago, with the token sale marking an expansionary drive for the protocol.
At the quoted supply cap of 17 million tokens each for Option 1 and 2 as well as the whitelisted allocation of 8,500,000 tokens for its existing DApp users, the firm aims to pull as much as $19 million via this public sale round. Per the sold tokens, option 1 will be freely trading by July 14, 2021, while option 2 is subjected to a 2-year release schedule beginning on July 14, 2021.
The Centrifuge Technology: X-raying the Protocol Beyond the Token Sale
The growing potentials of decentralized finance have stirred investor’s sentiments to be more interested in backing projects in the ecosystem in general. However, some of these projects have a unique underlying technology, and Centrifuge is no different.
The Centrifuge protocol has ushered in a new category of Total Value Locked (TVL) growth, bordering on introducing real-world asset (RWA) TVL. Using the Centrifuge Chain, real-world assets including invoices, real estate, royalties, and other assets can be tokenized and converted to Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). With these, RWAs have the potential to bring trillions in new assets to DeFi.
Centrifuge is built on Polkadot to leverage its speed and low fees, while its financing Decentralized Application, Tinlake, is built to access the massive liquidity on Ethereum. The protocol’s native token CFG has its own bridge to Ethereum. The essence of these bridges is to perfectly align its offerings with industry leaders including MakerDAO, and Aave amongst others.
Since the launch of its mainnet, Centrifuge has enabled support to accepts DAI and cUSD (Celo USD) in its pools, and in the future, it plans on accepting any stable coin such as Acala, Dai, or Celo. In a push to make additional grounds in its offerings, the team is working towards money markets on both Compound and Aave.
Centrifuge helps DeFi investors access safer, and investments with stable yields through offerings that are uncorrelated to volatile crypto returns. The platform is open to anyone and the products are administered with full transparency.
Centrifuge Fundraising History and Partners
Prior to its public token sale on CoinList, Centrifuge has pulled $8 million in equity funding in a seed round led by Mosaic in 2018. The round was backed by BlueYard, Fintech Collective, and more. A $4.3 million SAFT round was conducted in 2020 with participation from Fenbushi, Galaxy Digital Holdings Ltd (TSE: GLXY), IOSG, and Moonwhale amongst others.
The project was co-founded by Lucas Vogelsang and Martin Quensel, and its products are currently in use by Maker, Aave, Paperchain, CosolFreight. The Centrifuge is growing and amongst the blockchain firms that make up the ecosystem includes ChainSafe, Celo, SUBSCAN, Finoa, and Chainlink amongst others.