Bitcoin DeFi startup Portal announces its Reg D equity offering through Republic, a multi-asset investment platform that allows anyone to invest in vetted, private startups. The public sale began on Monday, July 18th.
Portal is building DeFi on Bitcoin Network
Portal is building a full-fledged, censorship-resistant DeFi ecosystem on top of the Bitcoin network. It makes trade unstoppable with anonymous, zero-knowledge swaps via the first true cross-chain DEX that’s trust-minimized. It eliminates the need for minting wrapped coins (ie wBTC, wETH) or risky staking with intermediaries. With Portal, DeFi becomes a service that anyone can provide, maintaining anonymity within open, transparent markets with a security model as robust as Bitcoin mining.
Portal is extending the capabilities of Bitcoin to lay a more robust foundation for self-sovereign finance. Portal team truly believes that the participants make the project, and want to ensure that those who support delivery of a truly decentralized financial network, including collaborators, users, and Republic investors alike, enjoy the growth of the company as much as the founders do. By making ownership of Portal available to the public, it is extending the accessibility of its operations (and profits) to the wider masses.
According to Republic, their vetting process only approves 3% of startups to fundraise on the platform. The equity offering will allow the general public to invest in an ambitious project building DeFi on top of the Bitcoin blockchain.
Portal CEO Eric Martindale said:
“The signal remains strong in the storm — Bitcoin remains the most likely candidate upon which the future of financial infrastructure will be built. As Bitcoin’s metrics continue to achieve all-time highs, Portal is eager to bring on this new round of investors in pursuit of advancing Bitcoin-based infrastructure and the continued decentralization of traditional financial services.”
Though Bitcoin is often seen just as digital money, Portal is leveraging the Bitcoin network as the rails for building many layers of censorship-resistant financial applications on top of it. Every geopolitical event over the last year has reinforced the need for a censorship-resistant global financial system.
The peer-to-peer atomic swaps underpinning Portal provide true decentralization, enabling users to trade native Layer-1 assets across different blockchains without delays, blocked funds, or exploits.
Portal’s Layer 2 and Layer 3 technology not only expands the cross-chain functionality of Bitcoin, but also simplifies building censorship-resistant communications, media and one-click execution of cross-chain swaps on top of the Bitcoin blockchain. It facilitates the private, off-chain execution of “smart contracts” for asset issuance, swaps, staking, liquidity, derivatives, and more, all peer-to-peer, without third-party custody or control.
The Reg D equity offering through Republic comes as Portal prepares to launch its testnet in the coming weeks.
Portal is backed by Coinbase, ArringtonXRP, and other prominent investors
Last year, Portal raised an $8.5 million funding to build its DeFi ecosystem on Bitcoin network.
The funding round saw participation from Coinbase Ventures, ArringtonXRP Capital, OKEx, Republic.co, Shima Ventures, LD Capital, Monday Capital, GenBlock, Taureon, Autonomy Capital, Krypital, B21 Capital as well as the senior executives and founders of Ethereum, DFINITY, MobileCoin, Tether (USDT), Galaxy Digital, Bitcoin.com, Republic, Centre.io, Polymath, Æternity, Hedera Hashgraph, Blockstream, Reef Finance, GlobeDX, FIO, Portion, and 4K.
How to participate?
Investors from around the world, including the residents and citizens of the United States, will be able to participate in the sale. They’ll have the option to fund their purchases via fiat or in BTC, USDT, USDC or ETH.
The total number of investors is limited to about 1,900. Portal expects the Reg D offering to sell out very fast.
Read Also: Bitcoin DeFi Startup ALEX Raises $5.8M