DeFi Protocol Maverick Raises $9M Led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund

Decentralized finance (DeFi) infrastructure provider, Maverick Protocol, has raised $9 million in funding from a set of crypto industry heavyweights.

The round was led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and included Pantera Capital, Binance Labs, Coinbase Ventures and Apollo Crypto, according to an emailed statement on Monday.

Maverick plans to use its new capital to build more efficient liquid staking token infrastructure and solve cross-chain liquidity efficiencies, the statement said.

Liquid staking protocols have become increasingly popular among digital assets investors and analysts expects further growth for the sector following Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade.

Maverick’s aim is to provide the infrastructure to bring greater efficiency to decentralized finance (DeFi) markets, according to the release. The protocol currently has more than $30 million in total value locked (TVL) to date, according to DeFiLlama.

In March, it unveiled its decentralized exchange (DEX) on Ethereum, powered by a smart contract-based automated market maker (AMM), which allows investors to capture greater revenue through automating the ranges in which they put their tokens to work. Since then, Maverick has also integrated with liquid staking projects such as Lido, Frax, Liquity, cbETH, Rocket Pool, and Swell, the statement said.

Decentralized trading platforms could become a preferred avenue for traders amid ongoing concerns about the stability of centralized exchanges, most acutely highlighted by FTX’s collapse last year along with recent reminders in the U.S. regulatory backlash against the likes of Coinbase and Binance. Traders may increasingly look toward platforms that are not vulnerable to the fortunes or misfortunes of individual large companies.