Cryptocurrency staking protocol Symbiotic closed a $29 million Collection A funding spherical led by Web3-focused funding companies, together with Pantera Capital and Coinbase Ventures, to help the launch of a brand new financial coordination layer for blockchain safety.
The spherical included greater than 100 angel traders, with participation from main trade gamers together with Aave, Polygon and StarkWare, the corporate mentioned in an April 23 announcement shared with Cointelegraph.
The closing of the funding spherical additionally marks the launch of Symbiotic’s Common Staking Framework, which goals to be an financial coordination layer that bolsters blockchain safety by way of staking.
The brand new staking layer allows the usage of any mixture of cryptocurrencies to safe networks, together with monolithic and modular layer-1 and layer-2 blockchains, the announcement acknowledged.
“We’ve created a modular framework that lets protocols evolve safety fashions over time whereas effectively coordinating danger,” Misha Putiatin, co-founder of Symbiotic, instructed Cointelegraph. “This empowers protocols at each stage of their lifecycle to evolve their safety fashions seamlessly with out rebuilding infrastructure.”
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The “subsequent step” in blockchain infrastructure
The brand new staking layer is the “subsequent step in blockchain infrastructure” as a result of unlocking “financial coordination between belongings and networks that have been beforehand inconceivable,” in line with Paul Veradittakit, managing associate at Pantera Capital.
“Because the quantity and number of onchain belongings proceed to extend, Symbiotic permits them to simply function financial safety whereas enabling totally new use instances throughout DeFi,” he added.
Blockchain networks seeking to bolster safety can undertake Symbiotic’s community of decentralized validators that convey “programmable safety” with out the necessity to modify infrastructure.
In response to the corporate, 14 networks, together with Hyperlane, Spark and Avail, have already adopted the brand new coordination layer, with 20 extra anticipated to observe.
The staking layer allows “any protocol, together with L1s, bridges, oracles, and even rising verticals like synthetic intelligence or zero-knowledge methods, to configure their very own validator units, incentive mechanisms and slashing situations with out having to rebuild core infrastructure,” Putiatin mentioned.
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Crypto wants extra collaborative financial incentives: Hoskinson
Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson, talking at Paris Blockchain Week 2025, emphasised the necessity for collaborative economics within the crypto trade to counter rising competitors from conventional tech companies coming into the blockchain area.
Crypto’s “round economic system,” which regularly implies that the rally of a particular cryptocurrency is bolstered by funds exiting one other token, is limiting the expansion of the trade, mentioned Hoskinson.
“The issue proper now, with the best way we’ve achieved issues within the cryptocurrency area, is the tokenomics and the market construction are intrinsically adversarial. It’s sum 0,” mentioned Hoskinson. “As a substitute of choosing a struggle, what you need to do is you need to discover tokenomics and market construction that lets you be in a cooperative equilibrium.”
“You may’t construct a worldwide ecosystem this fashion, and you’ll’t win this fashion,” he mentioned. “As a result of right here’s the factor. The incumbents are a lot bigger.”
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