Polkadot platform for DeFi derivatives lands $6.4 million in seed funding

On May 13, dTrade announced the closing of its seed funding round, which saw $6.4 million in investment from Three Arrows, DeFiance, Huobi and Polychain. 

DTrade aims to be the first derivatives exchange built on Polkadot. A press release shared with The Block said that it enables leveraged derivatives that settle on-chain. The goal is to remove custodial and counterparty risks from such trading.

DTrade co-founder Nikodem Grzesiak told The Block that many of the main contracts are going through audits ahead of a launch date in June. He said the second version of the perpetual swap exchange is now live on the Edgeware testnet, with a public testnet scheduled to go live in a few months.

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The current team consists of 11 full-time employees. According to Grzesiak, dTrade's native DET token will go live in June. He said that "55% of the tokens will be split between community treasury and liquidity mining incentives. The remaining 45% are for investors, team and advisors."

Polychain led an earlier pre-seed funding round into DTrade that ended in March. It did not disclose the investment amount.

Polkadot-based DeFi projects have grown in stature in recent months, alongside rising buzz around the "multichain" alternative to Ethereum. Equilibrium, for example, saw a $2.5 million Series A at the beginning of April. 

DTrade will not be available in the U.S., whose regulators do not look kindly upon leveraged derivatives trading for retail investors. 

About Author

Kollen Post is a senior reporter at The Block, covering all things policy and geopolitics from Washington, DC. That includes legislation and regulation, securities law and money laundering, cyber warfare, corruption, CBDCs, and blockchain’s role in the developing world. He speaks Russian and Arabic. You can send him leads at [email protected].