Framework Ventures, a tech investment firm that focuses on decentralized finance (DeFi) solutions, revealed on March 10, 2020, that it has invested $400,000 in Futureswap, a decentralized (or non-custodial) futures exchange.
Framework Ventures has also invested $500,000 in Commonwealth Labs, the creator of Edgeware, which is Polkadot’s first smart contract chain.
As mentioned in a press release shared with Crowdfund Insider:
“In addition to holding tokens, Framework Ventures will be supplementing their investments with additional assistance to these ecosystems, be it in terms of providing liquidity, developing an application toolkit, and more.”
Michael Anderson, co-founder at Framework Ventures, said that he believes these two initiatives are ideal fits for his firm’s “Network Capital” investment thesis.
Anderson added that venture capital in the crypto space should evolve beyond “simply purchasing coins and begin actually building value on the network.”
The Futureswap platform allows investors to acquire leveraged crypto futures contracts at competitive rates. It’s a hybrid or mix between a decentralized exchange and a leveraged trading platform.
As noted in the announcement:
“Futureswap aims to disrupt the multi-billion dollar leverage trading market currently dominated by centralized exchanges like BitMEX. Futureswap substitutes order books with automated market making, provides incentives to liquidity providers, and uses a ‘Dynamic Funding Rate’’ for systemwide balance between longs and shorts.”
Framework Ventures confirmed that it would be offering liquidity to the Futureswap platform by adding digital assets to the initial liquidity pools.
Edgeware is a proof-of-stake blockchain platform created by Commonwealth Labs. It’s notably the first smart contract layer developed on Polkadot, a solution that “empowers blockchain networks to work together under the protection of shared security.”
As explained in the release, Edgeware’s platform grows through “recursive self-improvement with a focus on on-chain governance.” Network participants are able to vote, delegate, and fund improvements and updates via distributed autonomous organizations, or DAOs, economic mechanisms, and cryptographically secured voting systems.
Framework Ventures has reportedly locked up 20,000 ETH (appr. $1.1 million at the time of lockup) in Edgeware’s lockdrop, in order “to promote distribution of its network.”
Dillon Chen, CEO at Edgeware, remarked:
“Our relationship with Framework is unlike any investor-startup relationship I’ve been a part of. They have far exceeded our expectations by acting as a network validator, engaging in on-chain governance, participating in community conversations, and launching protocol tools.”