Liquid restaking protocol Renzo shared Tuesday that it has raised $17 million in a funding spherical, in keeping with a press launch shared solely with CoinDesk.
The contemporary capital, which occurred over two rounds, was led by Galaxy Ventures within the first spherical and by Brevan Howard Digital Nova Fund within the second. Funds might be used in the direction of increasing the challenge’s restaking companies, together with including help for ERC-20 tokens.
Renzo is a part of a brand new class of “restaking” protocols constructed on EigenLayer, which takes customers’ ether (ETH) tokens, deposited or “staked” as safety on the Ethereum blockchain, after which repurposes them to safe further networks, referred to as “actively validated companies,” or AVS’.
Renzo, an AVS on EigenLayer, makes use of that staked ether (ETH) to generate yield, and customers then obtain Renzo’s liquid restaking token, ezETH token, in return..
The most recent pattern in restaking is that customers can now stake their ERC-20 tokens too, that are tokens primarily based on the Ethereum blockchain. EigenLayer beforehand shared that they’d begin accepting their EIGEN token, which is an ERC-20, to safe its in-house AVS, EigenDA.
Restaking competitor Symbiotic additionally shared that it might settle for Ethena Labs’ $ENA and $USDe, that are ERC-20 tokens.
Lucas Kozinski, founding contributor of Renzo, stated in an interview over Telegram that that is a part of a wider pattern, and that restaking can also be beginning to peep into the Bitcoin ecosystem and non-EVM chains.
“EigenLayer pioneered native ETH restaking, which is now increasing into different property together with $EIGEN to safe EigenDA,” Kozinkski advised CoinDesk. “Using ERC-20s for restaking is opening the door for different liquid restaking tokens to affix alongside $ezETH.”
The fundraising announcement comes two months after Renzo launched an airdrop for its $REZ token, through which some 32% of the token provide was distributed to its neighborhood.
Learn extra: Liquid Restaking Protocol Renzo Airdrops REZ Token, Debuts at $289M Market Cap