Pantera Capital Spearheads $16.5 Million Investment in ZK-Powered DEX Brine Fi, Valued at $100 Million

In a period where cryptocurrency venture funding has seen a significant decline and trading activities have taken a hit, Brine Fi, a decentralized exchange (DEX), has secured a substantial investment. Led by Pantera Capital, the investment round has brought in $16.5 million, valuing Brine Fi at $100 million. Other key participants in the funding round include Elevation Capital, StarkWare Ltd, Spartan Group, Goodwater Capital, Upsparks Ventures, and Protofund Ventures.

This injection of capital is particularly noteworthy, considering the scarcity of venture funding for digital asset enterprises. Crunchbase's report from July highlighted a 76% reduction in investment for cryptocurrency and blockchain startups in Q2 2023 compared to the previous year.

As the crypto market experiences a downturn, trading volumes have reached multi-year lows over the summer, characterized by a lack of driving factors to engage investors. While DEXs saw a brief surge in trading volumes during the spring, they have since sharply declined, recently averaging just above $1 billion per day, as indicated by DefiLlama data. The majority of trading activities remain centralized on platforms like Binance and Coinbase, with a combined daily trading volume of nearly $11 billion, according to data from The Block.

Brine Fi, leveraging Ethereum's scaling solution StarkWare, introduces a non-custodial, decentralized orderbook that guarantees privacy for trading positions through zero-knowledge proofs. This enables traders to execute large orders without concerns about front-running or causing market fluctuations. The platform also prides itself on high-speed trade execution. Launched for traders in May, Brine Fi has recently been executing daily trading volumes ranging between $3 million and $4 million.

Paul Veradittakit, Managing Partner at Pantera Capital, emphasized Brine's role in addressing crucial barriers to mainstream and institutional adoption in DeFi. He noted an urgent need for a self-custodial execution layer that is not only faster and more reliable but also user-friendly and cost-effective.