• Tim Draper’s VC firm Draper Associates led the $3.5 million seed round for Zest Protocol.
• Binance Labs, Trust Machines and Bitcoin Frontier Fund among key participants.

Billionaire Tim Draper has led a $3.5 million seed round investment in the on-chain Bitcoin lending platform Zest Protocol.

Other than the billionaire’s venture capital firm Draper Associates, the round also attracted the participation of Binance Labs, Trust Machines and Flow Traders.

Bitcoin Frontier Fund, Gravity Fund, Primal Capital, Hyperithm, Miton Crypto, Tykhe Block Ventures, Elixir Capital also participated.

Per details published in a blog post on Monday, Zest will use the funds to expand its decentralised, peer-to-peer lending business.

On the platform, users can lend their Bitcoin (BTC) or borrow against it. With this, users have an opportunity to generate yield or passive income without having to sell their Bitcoin.

Growing the Bitcoin DeFi ecosystem

To bring the product to the community, Zest Protocol has tapped into Bitcoin layer 2 network Stacks. The project leverages Stacks’ Nakamoto upgrade to allow for asset bridging asset, unlocking access to DeFi on Bitcoin.

Tycho Onnasch, founder of Zest Protocol, commented:

“Unlike on Ethereum, the creation of basic DeFi primitives such as liquidity pools isn’t possible on Bitcoin L1. The Stacks sBTC upgrade is set to be a watershed moment for Bitcoin DeFi, which is what it was designed for from the beginning.”

Users with sBTC can fund their Zest Protocol balances with sBTC to gain access to lending or other yield-generating features.

• About $6.5 million has flown out of funds monitoring completely different cryptocurrencies previously week.
• Bitcoin Hits 13 Million USD outflows, whereas Ethereum benefited from XRP-fueled sentiment, recording $6.6 million. USD earnings.
• Mild flows happen for 4 weeks in a row.

CoinShares’ newest report on digital asset funding merchandise says the trade noticed a modest lack of $6.5 million final week. The outflow follows 4 consecutive weeks wherein buyers poured $742 million into completely different cryptocurrency funding merchandise.

James Butterfill, head of analysis at CoinShares, famous that whereas Bitcoin recorded essentially the most site visitors, the info confirmed sentiment round Ethereum funding merchandise was optimistic.

Ethereum and XRP are recording inflows

As highlighted in a report revealed on Monday, funds following Bitcoin registered 13 million. USD outflows, whereas brief bitcoin merchandise recorded 5.5 million.

In the meantime, Ethereum product inflows reached 6.6 million. USD, and Butterfill famous that the change in sentiment about ETH coincided with the latest court docket ruling in Ripple Labs v. the US Securities and Trade Fee (SEC).

US decide Analisa Torres partially received Ripple’s battle with the SEC when she dominated that XRP isn’t an exchange-traded safety.

After the choice, the worth of XRP rose greater than 100%, reaching highs close to the much-desired $1 stage. Nevertheless, whereas XRP failed to interrupt the psychological 100 cent mark, evidently investor confidence within the cryptocurrency has helped it rather a lot.

“XRP, each earlier than and after the latest SEC lawsuit, noticed $6.8 million in inflows over the previous 11 weeks. USD, which is 8% of AuM. Because of this buyers are more and more assured within the prospect of XRPButterfill wrote.

The optimistic sentiment was additionally echoed by Solana, Uniswap and Polygon, which registered 1.1 million shares respectively. USD, 0.7 million USD and 0.7 million USD earnings.

• Final week, bitcoin inflows reached 133 million. USD, and Ethereum – 2.9 million.
• Complete inflows into cryptocurrency asset merchandise amounted to 136 million. USD, which is the third week in a row.
• Altcoins comparable to XRP, Solana, Polygon, Litecoin and Aave noticed modest inflows.

Final week, inflows into cryptocurrency funding merchandise amounted to 136 million. USD as confidence within the digital asset funding area continued to develop.

Final week marked the third consecutive week of inflows, based on information from cryptocurrency asset administration agency CoinShares. After buyers invested greater than 470 million in numerous cryptocurrency merchandise. USD, the 3-week interval was absolutely adjusted for the money flows recorded within the earlier 9 weeks.

A CoinShares report highlighting the marketplace for investing in digital belongings exhibits a web constructive movement of $231 million. USD.

Bitcoin entered $133

Bitcoin has seen the most important features in current weeks, with institutional buyers specializing in Bitcoin merchandise. That is defined by the influx of $133 million for Bitcoin in the course of the week, which drastically diminished Ethereum by $2.9 million. Bitcoin shorts really noticed a 1.8 million loss. USD outflows to strengthen this outlook.

Main altcoins comparable to XRP, Solana, Polygon, Litecoin and Aave recorded small flows. Even then, there’s a sign that buyers are principally wanting on the flagship cryptocurrency in comparison with altcoins.

Crypto market surges after BlackRock ETF submitting

This comes at a time when sentiment throughout the broader crypto market has basically modified the costs of most cryptocurrencies, with spot costs rising.

A flurry of Bitcoin ETF choices, led by high asset supervisor BlackRock, helped bulls to new YTD highs. (Learn extra)

Nevertheless, receipts elevated attributable to a lower in commerce turnover. Final week, the full quantity of funding merchandise reached 1 billion. USD in comparison with USD 2.5 billion USD common over the 2 weeks prior. As for CoinShares, the low volumes in the course of the week are probably attributable to seasonality, a situation sometimes seen between July and August.