[Renzo capitalizes on remortgage mania to raise $17M from Galaxy and Brevan Howard]
Liquid staking protocol Renzo has announced the completion of a funding round totaling $17 million in two rounds, the first led by Galaxy Ventures and the second led by Brevan Howard Digital Nova Fund. Funds will be used to expand the restaking service and add support for ERC-20 tokens.
Renzo is built on EigenLayer and is part of the "re-staking" protocol, which allows users to pledge ether (ETH) to secure additional network, called "Active Verification Service" (AVS). As EigenLayer’s AVS, Renzo uses staked ETH to generate revenue and issues liquid re-staking tokens ezETH to users in return.
The latest trend in re-staking includes the ability for users to stake their ERC-20 tokens, which are based on the Ethereum blockchain. EigenLayer accepts the ERC-20 token EIGEN to secure its internal AVS EigenDA. Renzo competitor Symbiotic also accepts Ethena Labs’ ERC-20 tokens $ENA and $USDe.
Renzo founding contributor Lucas Kozinski said the re-staking technology is being expanded to other assets including $EIGEN to secure EigenDA and open the door to other liquid re-staking tokens such as $ezETH.
The funding announcement comes just two months after Renzo released an airdrop of its REZ token, at which time approximately 32% of the token supply was distributed to its community.
According to CryptoQuant data, Bitcoin (BTC) spending increased, with large amounts of Bitcoin being transferred to exchanges, especially in the 1-12 month period. Data shows that 40% of used Bitcoin is 3-6 months old and 20% is 6-12 months old, and these transfers will be the main driver of selling pressure in the market.
Further analysis shows that this selling pressure may be amplified after the Bitcoin price rises, and the market may decline sharply. The recent increase in BTC spending and its movement to exchanges demonstrates the unpredictability of the digital currency market and market participants should be prepared for price fluctuations.
