Bybit contributes $19M to BitDAO in ETH, USDT and USDC to support DeFi growth

Michelle Lim

3 years ago

Singapore-based crypto derivatives exchange Bybit today announced it had made a US$19.3 million contribution in Ethereum (ETH), Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) to BitDAO, one of the world’s largest decentralized autonomous organizations, which it helped launch last month.

Fast facts

Many crypto projects, especially those in decentralized finance, have organized themselves as DAOs for governance using smart contracts on the blockchain. Members of DAOs hold tokens they can use to vote on proposals involving the DAO, such as the use of treasury assets.

In June, BitDAO raised US$230 million in a private sale involving many prominent investors and venture capital firms including Peter Thiel, Founders Fund, Pantera Capital, Dragonfly Capital and Alan Howard. BitDAO intends to support the DeFi ecosystem by providing funding through grants and token swaps. BitDAO affiliated R&D centers will prioritize building governance, treasury management and DeFi products, according to BitDAO’s roadmap.

“Bybit is proud to support bitdao.io. We have made a ~$19.3M contribution (in ETH, USDT and USDC) to the @BitDAO_Official treasury, equivalent to 2.5bps of futures trading vol. between July 15 and July 24.” Bybit tweeted today. “We pledge recurring contributions for the foreseeable future.”

Bybit has pledged recurring contributions of 2.5 basis points of its futures contracts trading volume to the BitDAO treasury, which is expected to amount to more than US$1 billion annually. The asset mix of its contribution is as follows: 50% ETH, 25% USDT, 25% USDC.

Earlier this month, Bybit launched spot trading for Bitcoin, ETH, XRP and EOS. Bybit’s move into spot trading comes as the exchange faces regulatory scrutiny in Ontario, Canada, over allowing residents of the province to trade cryptocurrency products that are securities and derivatives. Bybit and the Ontario Securities Commission have reached agreement on a schedule for enforcement proceedings, according to a ruling on July 13.