Decentralized finance, or DeFi, has evolved significantly over the past two years. The Algorand Foundation has revealed a new fund set up to allocate funds to some DeFi projects looking to build on the original blockchain.
The capital group is called the Viridis DeFi Fund, which is headed by the Algorand Foundation – a group responsible for the Algorand blockchain and the development of its ecosystem. “This fund will provide 150 million Algo to support significant early growth of the DeFi ecosystem in Algorand,” said an announcement Friday on the Algorand Foundation website.
“The fund will drive the growth of decentralized exchanges, money markets, options markets, synthetic asset applications, and NFT platforms, all running on the best blockchain network for the future of finance,” said a public statement from Algorand on Friday.
At press time, the original Algorand coin (ALGO) is trading at $1.96, based on CoinMarketCap data. This puts the value of the fund currently at $294 million, given the 150 million ALGO mentioned.
As the Ethereum blockchain has struggled to scale and meet demand for the use of DeFi, as evidenced by the network’s high fees, other blockchains are gaining increasing traction.
Proceeding from the fund, the Algorand Foundation has revealed the first of two Algorand DeFi building classes that are drawn up to receive capital from the fund. They’re called “SupaGrants,” and each grant holds $5 million. “We are excited to share the first of two SupaGrants that are designed to support the creation of critical DeFi infrastructure,” the announcement detailed. “Introducing Oracle SupaGrant at $5 million and SupaGrant at $5 million.”
Oracles in the cryptographic space are primary ways of routing information data to specific block chains from sources outside those networks. Bridges help connect isolated block chains so they can interact with each other, adding potential for limited individual networks. The Oracle scholarship is open to interested applicants, while the bridge scholarship is still in the works.
