GlobeNewswire by notified

Obol Labs Raises $12.5M Series A Funding to Make Proof-of-Stake Blockchains More Secure

Share

Latest funding, led by Pantera Capital and Archetype, accelerates the deployment of Distributed Validator Technology, a core technology on the Ethereum scaling roadmap that improves resiliency and decentralization

NEW YORK, Jan. 17, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Obol Labs announced the close of a $12.5 million Series A financing round. Pantera Capital and Archetype co-led the round, with new participation from BlockTower, Nascent, Placeholder, Spartan, and IEX, and follow-on investment from Coinbase Ventures and Ethereal Ventures. This latest round brings Obol Labs' total financing to $19M, making it the best-capitalized software team focused on developing Distributed Validator Technology to decentralize and secure blockchain staking.

In September, Ethereum upgraded to Proof-of-Stake, a consensus mechanism that laid the foundation for more democratized network participation by allowing individuals with 32 ETH to run a node and validate the network. However, technical expertise is still needed to operate a node while avoiding offline and slashing penalties. For many that don't have the necessary expertise to maintain a node or want to stake in smaller quantities, exchanges and staking-as-a-service providers have filled a major market gap, now representing ~75% of the estimated $20B staked on Ethereum. While providing an important service, centralized management of stake creates a risk to the integrity of the entire network. For Ethereum to be a global settlement layer, its middleware also must be incorruptible and credibly neutral.

Obol Labs, as the leading builder of Distributed Validator Technology (DVT), is directly solving the issue of single points of failure in staking infrastructure. DVT is a technology primitive that allows an Ethereum Proof-of-Stake validator to be run simultaneously on more than one machine (mentioned in Vitalik Buterin's Ethereum roadmap). The major breakthrough is the ability to split up a single validator private key, making it possible for a group of people to share validation rights of an Ethereum validator. The company's raise in the depth of crypto winter, as venture funding has decreased by over 60%, validates the importance of DVT for the next generation of Web3 scalability.

Running a validator as a cluster of nodes means more staking resilience: validators are less likely to go offline; validator keys are less likely to be compromised; and there is less correlation risk for the entire network if validator clients have software bugs. Ultimately, DVT allows network validators of any magnitude to increase resilience, distribution of stake, and security.

Collin Myers, Obol Labs CEO and Co-Founder: "Turbulent events of 2022, including the FTX collapse, make decentralization a key priority on all levels of the Web3 stack. To make networks more secure, staking must be decentralized by design. Obol's DVT brings decentralization and resiliency to the ground floor of staking products. Our current focus is Ethereum, but in the future, we'll have implementations with Cosmos and Ethereum L2 networks."

"Obol Labs have excelled in bringing together a community of solo stakers and staking-as-a-service providers alike to advance Distributed Validator Technology. Obol plays a critical role in improving validator participation and scaling Ethereum through its next phase of growth. We are also excited to see how Obol advances DVT among other Proof-of-Stake blockchains in the coming year," said Paul Veradittakit, General Partner of Pantera Capital.

Oisín Kyne, CTO at Obol Labs, added, "Today, we think of validators as individuals or single entities. We think validators should actually be run as groups. Instead of only being able to run a validator alone, we want to enable you to run validators with a community of other stakers cooperatively."

Obol Labs is actively working with leading liquid staking protocols like Lido, Stakewise, and more to implement DVT into their operator set. In addition, a large majority of Obol's earliest seed supporters are the likes of Coinbase Ventures, Figment, Blockdaemon, Chorus One, and a collection of other industry-leading validators that are actively testing, adopting, and helping build Obol's DVT technology.

"Today, staking-as-a-service protocols and providers make up the most adopted segment of the staking industry, which makes it the most critical segment to advance infrastructures that improve staking resiliency and decentralization," said Ash Egan, Founder and General Partner of Archetype. 

In addition to working with larger validators, Obol Labs is helping to improve solo validator participation with their active community of 9,000+ members across 20+ countries. Together, at-home validators participating in Obol Labs testnets are running hundreds of multi-continent distributed validators on the Ethereum Goerli network with other operators using the recently launched DV Launchpad.

Obol Labs' Series A will accelerate the Obol Network's roadmap for bringing DVT to Mainnet Ethereum. Obol will also support the advancement of DVT across other Layer 1 Proof-of-Stake blockchains like Cosmos, as well as the L2 ecosystem to help address the resiliency of sequencers. 

About Obol Labs:

Obol Labs is an R&D team building infrastructure technologies for Ethereum and other Proof-of-Stake blockchains to scale consensus and ensure decentralization. Consisting of members across 13+ countries, the core team is currently focused on bringing Distributed Validator Technology to Ethereum. Follow at obol.tech or @ObolNetwork.

Additional Resources:

Contact Information:
Brett Li
Growth Lead
brett@obol.tech
(510) 364-9038

Related Images



To view this piece of content from cdn.newswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.


Image 1: Obol Logo


Official Obol Logo



This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com.

Attachment

To view this piece of content from www.globenewswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
To view this piece of content from ml.globenewswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.

About GlobeNewswire by notified

GlobeNewswire by notified
GlobeNewswire by notified
One Liberty Plaza - 165 Broadway
NY 10006 New York

https://notified.com

GlobeNewswire by notified is one of the world's largest newswire distribution networks, specializing in the delivery of corporate press releases financial disclosures and multimedia content to the media, investment community, individual investors and the general public.

Subscribe to releases from GlobeNewswire by notified

Subscribe to all the latest releases from GlobeNewswire by notified by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Latest releases from GlobeNewswire by notified

Iveco Group signs a 150 million euro term loan facility with Cassa Depositi e Prestiti to support investments in research, development and innovation11.6.2024 12:00:00 CEST | Press release

Turin, 11th June 2024. Iveco Group N.V. (EXM: IVG), a global automotive leader active in the Commercial & Specialty Vehicles, Powertrain and related Financial Services arenas, has successfully signed a term loan facility of 150 million euros with Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP), for the creation of new projects in Italy dedicated to research, development and innovation. In detail, through the resources made available by CDP, Iveco Group will develop innovative technologies and architectures in the field of electric propulsion and further develop solutions for autonomous driving, digitalisation and vehicle connectivity aimed at increasing efficiency, safety, driving comfort and productivity. The financed investments, which will have a 5-year amortising profile, will be made by Iveco Group in Italy by the end of 2025. Iveco Group N.V. (EXM: IVG) is the home of unique people and brands that power your business and mission to advance a more sustainable society. The eight brands are each a

DSV, 1115 - SHARE BUYBACK IN DSV A/S11.6.2024 11:22:17 CEST | Press release

Company Announcement No. 1115 On 24 April 2024, we initiated a share buyback programme, as described in Company Announcement No. 1104. According to the programme, the company will in the period from 24 April 2024 until 23 July 2024 purchase own shares up to a maximum value of DKK 1,000 million, and no more than 1,700,000 shares, corresponding to 0.79% of the share capital at commencement of the programme. The programme has been implemented in accordance with Regulation No. 596/2014 of the European Parliament and Council of 16 April 2014 (“MAR”) (save for the rules on share buyback programmes set out in MAR article 5) and the Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/1052, also referred to as the Safe Harbour rules. Trading dayNumber of shares bought backAverage transaction priceAmount DKKAccumulated trading for days 1-25478,1001,023.01489,100,86026:3 June 20247,0001,050.597,354,13027:4 June 20245,0001,055.705,278,50028:6 June20243,0001,096.273,288,81029:7 June 20244,0001,106.174,424,68

Landsbankinn hf.: Offering of covered bonds11.6.2024 11:16:36 CEST | Press release

Landsbankinn will offer covered bonds for sale via auction held on Thursday 13 June at 15:00. An inflation-linked series, LBANK CBI 30, will be offered for sale. In connection with the auction, a covered bond exchange offering will take place, where holders of the inflation-linked series LBANK CBI 24 can sell the covered bonds in the series against covered bonds bought in the above-mentioned auction. The clean price of the bonds is predefined at 99,594. Expected settlement date is 20 June 2024. Covered bonds issued by Landsbankinn are rated A+ with stable outlook by S&P Global Ratings. Landsbankinn Capital Markets will manage the auction. For further information, please call +354 410 7330 or email verdbrefamidlun@landsbankinn.is.

Relay42 unlocks customer intelligence with a new insights and reporting module, powered by Amazon QuickSight11.6.2024 11:00:00 CEST | Press release

AMSTERDAM, June 11, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Relay42, a leading European Customer Data Platform (CDP), is leveraging Amazon QuickSight to power its new real-time customer intelligence, reporting, and dashboard module. Harnessing the breadth and quality of customer data, the new Insights module empowers marketing teams to dive deep into customer behaviors and gain invaluable insights into the performance of their marketing programs across all online, offline, paid, and owned marketing channels. Preview of the Relay42 Insights module, in pre-beta version Key capabilities of the Relay42 Insights module include: Deep insights into customer behaviors: With the Relay42 Insights module, marketers can ask unlimited questions about their data and gain a deeper understanding of how to serve their customers more effectively. Simplicity with AI-powered querying: Marketers can use artificial intelligence to query their data using natural language search, reducing the reliance on data scientists. Us

Metasphere Labs Announces X Spaces Event on the Topic of Green Bitcoin Mining and Sound Money for Sustainability11.6.2024 10:30:00 CEST | Press release

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 11, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Metasphere Labs Inc. (formerly Looking Glass Labs Ltd., "Metasphere Labs" or the "Company") (Cboe Canada: LABZ) (OTC: LABZF) (FRA: H1N) is thrilled to announce an engaging Twitter Spaces event on Green Bitcoin mining, energy markets, and sustainability on July 3, 2024 at 2 p.m. ET. Follow us on X at MetasphereLabs for updates and to join the event. What We'll Discuss Bitcoin Mining Basics: Understand the fundamentals of Bitcoin mining.Energy Market Dynamics: Explore how Bitcoin mining interacts with energy markets.Sustainable Innovations: Learn about our efforts to promote sustainability in Bitcoin mining.Sound Money: Discover how tamper-proof currency can enhance stability.Efficient Payment Rails: See how fast, neutral payment systems support humanitarian projects.Carbon Footprint: Compare Bitcoin's environmental impact with traditional banking. "We're excited to host this event and dive into the critical topics of Bitcoin

World GlobeA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.HiddenA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.Eye