DeFi protocol raises $10M from Bitfinex, Ava Labs despite turbulent market

The ongoing crypto bear market has proven itself to be a builders market as investments continue to find projects with promise.

Onomy, a Cosmos blockchain-based ecosystem, just secured millions from investors for the development of its new protocol. The project merges decentralized finance (DeFi) and the foreign exchange market to bring the latter on-chain.

According to the developers, the latest funding round garnered $10 million from big industry players such as Bitfinex, Ava Labs, the Maker Foundation and CMS Holdings among others.

Lalo Bazzi, co-founder of Onomy, said the underlying goal of building a decentralized autonomous organization with a public infrastructure should serve the “core tenant of crypto — self-custody — without sacrificing on the user experience.”

Both DeFi and self-custody have been hot topics in the crypto community due to the FTX liquidity-bankruptcy scandal. Some experts have said that one of the major lessons to take away from the situation is the value of DeFi platforms compared to centralized gatekeepers.

Forecasts for the near future of the industry have shown a mixture of another tough year while still holding investors’ interest.

According to a Coinbase-sponsored survey that was conducted between Sept. 21 and Oct. 27, institutional investors are still keen on the space. It revealed that 62% of surveyed institutional investors with crypto investments increased their positions in the past year.

On Nov. 9, just days into the FTX scandal, Cathie Wood of ARK Investment added an additional $12.1 million to the company’s existing shares in Coinbase. Additionally, banks continue to show interest in the industry, with JP Morgan using DeFi for cross-border transactions and BNY Mellon launching its own Digital Asset Custody Platform.

Still, some research predicts a continuation of tough conditions for the blockchain industry, which have the potential to last into the upcoming year.