Major crypto companies invest $30 million in BlockFi

By Robert Stevens

Crypto lending and borrowing service BlockFi today announced it’s raised $30 million in a Series B funding round, bringing its total funding to over $100 million. 

Valar Ventures led the funding round. The Winklevoss Twins’ investment arm followed, as did favorites from crypto-Twitter, including Anthony Pompliano’s Morgan Creek Digital, Nic Carter’s Castle Island Ventures, and Michael Arrington’s Arrington XRP Capital. It was fully equity-based, and didn’t result in any board changes.

ArringtonXRP founder Michael Arrington participated in the round. Image: Shutterstock.

BlockFi offers up to 8.6% a year yield on Bitcoin, Ether, and stablecoins; loans that let investors liquidate up to half of an asset’s value in US dollars; and trading without fees. The New York-based firm started lending in January 2018, and now has over $650 million assets on the platform. BlockFi said it grew its revenue more than twenty times in 2019.

Carter, who declined to tell Decrypt how much he's invested, "couldn't be more excited" about BlockFi, a service he personally uses. In BlockFi, he found "clear evidence of product market fit, extremely strong growth numbers, [and a team] proactive about regulatory issues."

The “cryptocurrency brokerage space will spawn several multi-billion dollar businesses, and giving end-users frictionless on and off-ramps to cryptocurrency, lending products, and credit cards with bitcoin rewards is clearly a winning idea,” he added. 

Flori Marquez, BlockFi’s co-founder, told Decrypt the company’s using the money to build a system that lets people connect their bank accounts to BlockFi to fund accounts, and has plans to launch a crypto-rewards credit card.

 “We think the credit card will be game changing. Most rewards encourage people to spend more money—miles to buy more flights, points to book more hotels. Our credit card will let clients invest and earn money in the long term, in the form of Bitcoin,” she said. 

Some of the funds raised will be spent on growing the team—in a few months, it’s opening a new office in Singapore to reach institutional clients in the Asia Pacific region—and this year, customers can also expect a mobile app.

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