Equilibrium, a Polkadot-based project for cross-chain DeFi, raises $5.5 million

DeFi • October 1, 2020, 10:01AM EDT

Equilibrium, a Polkadot-based, cross-chain decentralized finance (DeFi) project, has raised $5.5 million.

Sharing the news exclusively with The Block on Thursday, Equilibrium said the money was raised via a new "token swap" method, in which investors exchanged their old tokens with new ones.

Specifically, Native Utility Token (NUT), from Equilibrium's EOS-based product line, was exchanged for its new Polkadot-based token, called EQ. Venture firms BKEX Capital, PNYX Ventures, and Taureon also participated in the token swap sale.

Equilibrium CEO Alex Melikhov told The Block that the firm is building a DeFi protocol on Polkadot that would simplify the creation of decentralized applications on Substrates and Parachains. This, in turn, would help developers to migrate to Polkadot from Ethereum and other blockchains, Melikhov said.

Equilibrium's cross-chain protocol will offer pooled lending, borrowing, trading, and staking services, according to the project team. The protocol's developers intend to make Ethereum and other blockchains "fully compatible with each other" by offering a "unified interface" for DeFi use cases.

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