Peter Thiel, Alan Howard back BitDAO's $230 million raise

A new decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) called BitDAO has been formed, and several high-profile investors, including Peter Thiel and Alan Howard, have backed its $230 million fundraise.

Thiel led the round, along with his Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, and Dragonfly Capital. Other investors in the round included Jump Capital, Spartan Group, Fenbushi, and Kain Warwick of Synthetix. The fundraise was realized via a private token sale round.

BitDAO's initial proponent is crypto derivatives exchange Bybit. The exchange has, therefore, pledged a contribution of 2.5 basis points of its futures contracts trading volume to the BitDAO treasury, which at January-May 2021 run rate is expected to be more than $1 billion per year, said BitDAO.

The DAO wants to promote the growth of the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector by providing grants and liquidity to DeFi projects and setting up research and development (R&D) centers.

"BitDAO is putting its full support behind DeFi and will allocate significant financial and talent resources to drive DeFi growth," the organization said in a statement shared with The Block on Wednesday. As for BitDAO-affiliated R&D centers, the DAO said those would aim to employ "hundreds" of people to help innovate and tackle technical challenges faced by the DeFi sector.

The DeFi industry is seeing an increasing interest from venture capitalists. As The Block Research reported recently, nearly 50% of crypto deals in the first quarter of this year were into DeFi projects. 

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Yogita Khatri is a senior reporter at The Block, covering all things crypto. As one of the earliest team members, Yogita has played a pivotal role in breaking numerous stories, exclusives and scoops. With nearly 3,000 articles under her belt, Yogita holds the records as The Block's most-published and most-read author of all time. Prior to joining The Block, Yogita worked at crypto publication CoinDesk and The Economic Times, where she wrote on personal finance. To contact her, email: [email protected]. For her latest work, follow her on X @Yogita_Khatri5.