Crypto Company Digital Asset said Tuesday it had secured $135 million in funding from a large number of banking and financial figures.
The company, which touts itself as a regulated crypto player, also invests in Citadel securities from Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas and Ken Griffin, said it raised fresh cash in a funding round co-led by DRW and TradeWeb.
The investment highlights how many embedded large financial institutions have once embedded themselves in the world of cryptocurrency.
Digital assets previously associated with fraud, money laundering and other illegal activities have become more mainstream asset classes for many years as big names like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have been warmed into the space.
Last week, JPMorgan launched its own version of Stablecoin, a deposit token called “JPMD.”
“With increasing participation from global financial institutions and market participants, we expect this funding round to help solidify its role as the backbone of digital finance,” Yuval Rooz, CEO and co-founder of Digital Asset, told CNBC.
Digital Asset sells many digital asset services to its clients, including leading Wall Street players such as Goldman Sachs, Citadel and Virtu. It was co-founded by Yuval Rooz, a trader who turned to trade in 2014, and competes with Ripple, R3, Consensys and others.
The company will use the new funds to promote the adoption of the Canton Network. Originally developed by digital assets, Canton, now open source, is a public blockchain designed for financial institutions to move assets and data while meeting regulatory and privacy requirements.
Banks and trading companies use cantons of real-world assets such as bonds, goods, and money market funds.
“These pay raises will build on the continuous momentum around the Canton Network, accelerate the onboarding of higher quality assets, and ultimately make blockchain transformative promises a reality on the scale of the system,” Rooz told CNBC.
According to the CEO of Digital Asset, the network currently supports trillions of dollars with tokenized assets.
