Ben Strack

<div id="highlights-block_624483aae745b" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The Los Angeles-based company is in discussions with other protocols to launch similar products</li>
 <li>Cardano’s market cap is roughly $38 billion — slightly less than Solana (SOL) and more than Terra (LUNA)</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



Wave Financial is launching a fund designed to offer liquidity for new DeFi platforms launched in the Cardano ecosystem.



The Wave ADA Yield Fund, which has launched with an initial $100 million, will support the new decentralized exchanges, lending protocols and stablecoin issuers building on Cardano.&nbsp;



“Today we are launching what we believe is the first pure liquidity provisioning fund in crypto,&#8221; Wave Financial CEO David Siemer said in a statement Wednesday. “Each of these decentralized applications adds to the strong foundation of the Cardano blockchain as it realizes a fully functional and diverse ecosystem.&#8221;



Singapore-based <a href="https://emurgo.io" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">EMURGO</a>, ​​a founder of the Cardano protocols, supported the creation of the Wave fund, according to the news release. EMURGO in September <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/cardano-commercial-arm-aims-to-jumpstart-new-startups-with-100m-in-funding/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">launched a $100 million investment vehicle</a> to invest into early startup and growth stage companies shaping the Cardano ecosystem.



Cardano (ADA) has the eighth-highest market capitalization among cryptoassets, according to data compiled by Blockworks. ADA’s market cap is roughly $38 billion — slightly less than Solana (SOL) and more than Terra (LUNA).



DEXs (decentralized exchanges) and DeFi (decentralized finance) lenders have gained the fastest popularity in terms of attracting users and capital, according to the company. The ADA Yield Fund will provide liquidity to the two pools of assets representing each side of a trading pair for Cardano DEXs.



Wave will also continue to support and expand staking pools to strengthen the Cardano network.



“Specific to Cardano, we were very impressed with the academic research that forms the foundation of the work that they are building, in a proof of stake consensus mechanism with a proper staking setup,” Benjamin Tsai, Wave Financial president and managing partner, told Blockworks. “With the launch of smart contract capabilities last year, the ecosystem is ripe for growth across DeFi, NFT, and other areas.”



The Los Angeles-based company manages more than $1 billion in assets. It offers a Wave BTC Income &amp; Growth Digital Fund, which sells one-month call options backed by the bitcoin held in the fund, collects a premium from option sales, and passes that premium to investors in a monthly dividend.&nbsp;



Wave Financial also has an early-stage crypto investment fund that has invested in blockchain companies, protocols and cryptocurrencies since 2018.



Siemer <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/wave-financial-ceo-institutional-adoption-of-bitcoin-defi-and-nfts-will-increase/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">previously told Blockworks</a> that he personally invests mostly in bitcoin, ether and cardano. The Wave Financial CEO also noted at the time that he was bullish about NFTs (non-fungible tokens), predicting that the space would grow 100 times over the next few years.



Tsai said the company is in discussions with a number of other protocols to launch products similar to the Cardano fund. It is also looking into offerings that are not protocol specific.



“One area of interest from the institutional client base which we speak with is DeFi and capturing attractive yields from the crypto market with minimal market exposure,” Tsai said. “This is something we are looking to package and offer soon.”



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$100M Wave Financial Fund Offers Liquidity to New Cardano DeFi Platforms

<div id="highlights-block_6151feae5f0c7" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Investment vehicle will inject funds into new project working in the Cardano ecosystem</li>
 <li>Cardano hopes to be adopted as a mainstream technology in Africa</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The commercial arm of the Cardano blockchain has launched a $100 million investment vehicle to invest into early startup and growth stage companies.



Singapore-based <a href="https://emurgo.io" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">EMURGO</a> ​​is a founder of the Cardano protocols and the new investment vehicle will focus on building socially impactful solutions powered by Cardano, through EMURGO Africa and EMURGO Ventures.&nbsp;



<a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3303591-1&amp;h=4195830527&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Femurgoafrica.vc%2F&amp;a=EMURGO+Africa" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">EMURGO Africa</a> aims to support about 300 startups in the region through seed funding and incubation to ultimately have Cardano&#8217;s blockchain adopted as a mainstream technology. The entity will partner with venture building studio operator Adanian Labs to expand the Cardano ecosystem in Africa, as well as Adaverse, a Cardano-focused joint accelerator program.



<a href="https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=3303591-1&amp;h=2782165251&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Femurgo.vc%2F&amp;a=EMURGO+Ventures" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">EMURGO Ventures</a> will focus on other developed markets to facilitate the building of solutions and services on Cardano. This will include seed investments into companies building decentralized financial (DeFi) services, non-fungible token (NFT) projects and blockchain developer education tools.



The new investment vehicle comes shortly after the Cardano network’s <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/cardano-ada-token-price-rises-as-hard-fork-hits-testnet/">Alonz</a><a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/cardano-ada-token-price-rises-as-hard-fork-hits-testnet/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">o upgrade</a>, which enables smart contract functionality, a prerequisite to deploying decentralized applications such as those for DeFi and NFTs. Nigel Hemsley, Cardano’s head of delivery, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnV4eWw37Ts" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">previously said</a> that the new capabilities would provide a foundation to build more dApps on the blockchain going forward.&nbsp;



An EMURGO spokesperson did not immediately respond to Blockworks’ request for further comment.



“EMURGO’s investments will help to shape the future of the Cardano ecosystem, a maturing network with a creative and diverse community, growing smart contract capabilities and partnerships across the globe that provide social and financial services utilizing Cardano’s provably-secure technology,” IOHK CEO Charles Hoskinson said in a statement.



<a href="https://iohk.io/en/about/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">IOHK</a>, which stands for Input Output Hong Kong, is the blockchain infrastructure research and engineering company behind Cardano. Hoskinson, the most well-known figure on the Cardano project, famously predicted in July 2020 that there would be “thousands of DApps, tons of interesting projects and lots of unique use and utility,” within one year’s time. Today there are 62 according to <a href="https://cardanocrowd.com/dapps" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cardanocrowd.com</a>.



Building a robust ecosystem, particularly in DeFi, remains an elusive goal, and the early weeks post-Alonzo saw Cardano proponents <a href="https://twitter.com/InputOutputHK/status/1434518391465943048" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">deflecting criticism</a> of the blockchain network’s prospects for doing so, following the <a href="https://twitter.com/MinswapDEX/status/1434604812914466816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1434604812914466816%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdecrypt.co%2F80363%2Fcardano-plunges-critics-take-aim-smart-contract-launch" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">failed launch</a> of its first DeFi application — Minswap — a decentralized exchange (DEX).



The fund&#8217;s first seed investment is in Milkomeda, a project bridging Cardano and other layer-1 blockchain protocols by using wrapped ADA as an asset.



The new funding pool come at a time when global adoption of crypto has grown by about 880% in the last year, according to <a href="http://v" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">research by Chainalysis</a>. In countries in emerging markets — such as Kenya, Nigeria, Vietnam, and Venezuela — many turn to cryptocurrency to preserve their savings in the face of currency devaluation, send and receive remittances and carry out business transactions.



Cardano’s token, ADA, is the <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/cardano-now-third-largest-cryptocurrency-by-market-cap/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">third-largest cryptocurrency</a> by market capitalization, according to <a href="https://www.coingecko.com/en" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">CoinGecko</a>, at just under $70 billion as of 1 p.m. eastern on Monday. ADA’s price was $2.17 at that time, down 5.1% in the last seven days



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Emurgo