Puffer Finance secures $18M in funding as liquid staking market heats up

Puffer Finance, an Ethereum-based liquid staking venture constructed on the EigenLayer restaking protocol, has raised $18 million in a Collection A funding spherical led by Brevan Howard Digital and Electrical Capital. The funds can be used to launch the venture’s mainnet, marking a big milestone within the growth of Puffer Finance’s liquid staking answer.

The funding spherical noticed participation from distinguished buyers similar to Coinbase Ventures, Kraken Ventures, Lemniscap, Franklin Templeton, Constancy, Mechanism, Lightspeed Faction, Consensys, Animoca, and GSR, amongst others. Along with the Collection A spherical, Puffer Finance additionally secured a strategic funding from Binance Labs, additional enhancing its place inside the liquid restaking ecosystem.

“Following this spherical, Puffer secured a strategic funding from Binance Labs, enhancing its place inside the Liquid Restaking ecosystem,” Puffer Finance acknowledged in its announcement.

The protocol additionally hinted at forthcoming “technological developments” after its mainnet launch, though the specifics of those updates weren’t mentioned.

Puffer Finance’s expertise allows Ethereum validators to cut back their capital requirement from the usual 32 ETH to simply 1 ETH, considerably decreasing the barrier to entry for particular person stakers. Furthermore, customers who stake Ether by means of Puffer Finance obtain Puffer liquid restaking tokens (nLRTs), which can be utilized to farm yields in different decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols concurrently with their Ethereum staking rewards.

Liquid staking, a course of that permits customers to stake their property whereas sustaining liquidity by means of tradable ERC-20 tokens, has gained reputation amongst Ethereum holders following the community’s transition to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus. Puffer Finance goals to make liquid staking extra accessible and environment friendly for Ethereum customers.

Knowledge from DeFiLlama signifies that Puffer Finance’s whole worth locked (TVL) surpassed $1.2 billion shortly after its early take a look at section in February, demonstrating robust demand for its liquid staking answer. Thus far, the protocol has raised a complete of $23.5 million in enterprise capital funding.

Amir Forouzani, a core contributor at Puffer Labs, emphasised the venture’s objective, stating, “We intention to considerably cut back the obstacles for dwelling validators to take part, whereas delivering probably the most superior liquid restaking protocol.”

The Ethereum liquid staking market has skilled great progress, with a TVL exceeding $51 billion, largely pushed by Lido Finance, the most important liquid staking protocol on Ethereum. As of March 2024, Lido Finance has a TVL of over $11 billion, with greater than 9.78 million ETH staked on the platform.

Liquid staking affords a number of advantages to Ethereum customers, together with diversification of earnings, danger mitigation, improved capital effectivity, enhanced community safety and decentralization, and the flexibility to make use of staked property in DeFi purposes. By enabling extra individuals to stake their ETH, tasks like Puffer Finance contribute to the general well being and resilience of the Ethereum community.