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Paradigm Invests $8.8M in DeFi’s Ribbon Finance
The protocol automates crypto derivatives strategies for the lay DeFi trader.
By Brandy Betz
Updated May 11, 2023, 7:11 p.m. Published Mar 22, 2022, 1:01 p.m.
Ribbon Finance, a crypto structured products protocol backed by the RBN token, has raised $8.8 million under a new partnership with Paradigm, the venture capital firm that launched a record $2.5 billion crypto fund last November.
Under the partnership, Ribbon Finance and Paradigm will work to build new risk products native to decentralized finance (DeFi) and continue to scale the protocol, including doubling down on the project’s multi-chain approach.
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“[Ribbon] is a simple way for users to earn high yield on bitcoin, ether and USDC,” co-founder and CEO Julian Koh told CoinDesk in an interview. “We help users create exposure to expert, complicated financial strategies under the hood, but we make that experience really easy for users.”
In short, Ribbon Finance makes it easier for retail investors to benefit from the complicated world of crypto derivatives, Koh said.
Read more: Crypto Options Traders Turn to DeFi for Altcoin Bets as QCP Slings $1B
Investors deposit wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) or ETH into a vault that automates the “covered call” options strategy, where the strike price is higher than the current asset price. Ribbon writes the calls on a weekly basis and collects the premium. Ribbon says investors can expect double-digit annual percentage yield (APY) from Theta Vault, according to its website.
Ribbon has $257.6 million in total value locked on the protocol, according to data from DeFi Llama.
“Structured products are one of the most important categories of DeFi,” Paradigm research partner and Chief Technology Officer Georgios Konstantopoulos said in a statement. “We were impressed by the execution of the Ribbon team and are excited to back Julian and (co-founder) Ken (Chan) to make Ribbon the market leader in their category
Looking forward
Koh said the focus over the next six months is expanding to additional blockchains. Ribbon Finance recently deployed on Avalanche and Solana and is focused on building its presence on those chains.
“We are just getting started,” said Koh. “The whole structured products industry in DeFi is less than a year old. So we have really just scratched the surface of the types of products that people can build.”
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