Cryptocurrency staking protocol Symbiotic closed a $29 million Collection A funding spherical led by Web3-focused funding companies, together with Pantera Capital and Coinbase Ventures, to help the launch of a brand new financial coordination layer for blockchain safety.
The spherical included greater than 100 angel buyers, with participation from main business gamers together with Aave, Polygon and StarkWare, the corporate mentioned in an April 23 announcement shared with Cointelegraph.
The closing of the funding spherical additionally marks the launch of Symbiotic’s Common Staking Framework, which goals to be an financial coordination layer that bolsters blockchain safety through staking.
The brand new staking layer permits the usage of any mixture of cryptocurrencies to safe networks, together with monolithic and modular layer-1 and layer-2 blockchains, the announcement acknowledged.
“We’ve created a modular framework that lets protocols evolve safety fashions over time whereas effectively coordinating threat,” Misha Putiatin, co-founder of Symbiotic, informed Cointelegraph. “This empowers protocols at each stage of their lifecycle to evolve their safety fashions seamlessly with out rebuilding infrastructure.”
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The “subsequent step” in blockchain infrastructure
The brand new staking layer is the “subsequent step in blockchain infrastructure” resulting from unlocking “financial coordination between belongings and networks that had been beforehand unimaginable,” in accordance with Paul Veradittakit, managing accomplice at Pantera Capital.
“Because the quantity and number of onchain belongings proceed to extend, Symbiotic permits them to simply function financial safety whereas enabling completely new use circumstances throughout DeFi,” he added.
Blockchain networks seeking to bolster safety can undertake Symbiotic’s community of decentralized validators that deliver “programmable safety” with out the necessity to modify infrastructure.
In accordance with the corporate, 14 networks, together with Hyperlane, Spark and Avail, have already adopted the brand new coordination layer, with 20 extra anticipated to observe.
The staking layer permits “any protocol, together with L1s, bridges, oracles, and even rising verticals like synthetic intelligence or zero-knowledge methods, to configure their very own validator units, incentive mechanisms and slashing circumstances with out having to rebuild core infrastructure,” Putiatin mentioned.
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Crypto wants extra collaborative financial incentives: Hoskinson
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, talking at Paris Blockchain Week 2025, emphasised the necessity for collaborative economics within the crypto business to counter rising competitors from conventional tech companies getting into the blockchain area.
Crypto’s “round economic system,” which frequently signifies that the rally of a selected cryptocurrency is bolstered by funds exiting one other token, is limiting the expansion of the business, mentioned Hoskinson.
“The issue proper now, with the best way we’ve performed issues within the cryptocurrency area, is the tokenomics and the market construction are intrinsically adversarial. It’s sum 0,” mentioned Hoskinson. “As a substitute of selecting a struggle, what it’s important to do is it’s important to discover tokenomics and market construction that means that you can be in a cooperative equilibrium.”
“You possibly can’t construct a world ecosystem this manner, and you may’t win this manner,” he mentioned. “As a result of right here’s the factor. The incumbents are a lot bigger.”
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