Stablecoin Agora has raised $12 million in seed funding, Bloomberg reports.
Venture firm Dragonfly led the round, with additional support from General Catalyst and Robot Ventures.
Agora plans to launch a USD-pegged stablecoin that supports cash, U.S. Treasury bonds, and overnight repurchase agreements, and build relationships with exchanges and other cryptocurrency companies. The company will focus on customers outside the U.S. for now.
Nick Van Eck, son of investment firm VanEck CEO Jan Van Eck, co-founded Agora. VanEck will manage the funds in Agora’s reserves, Bloomberg added.
Agora faces strong competition in the USD-pegged stablecoin market. tethers USDT
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VanEck’s spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund HODL has received a ton of attention since its approval on January 11, and even saw a 1,000% increase in trading volume in early February, The Block previously reported. On April 1, HODL brought in USD trading volume of $22.82 million.
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About the author
MK Manoylov has been a reporter for The Block since 2020, joining just before Bitcoin surpassed $20,000 for the first time. Since then, MK has written nearly 1,000 articles for publications covering all cryptocurrency-related news, preferring NFTs, metaverse, web3 games, fundraising, crime, hacking, and cryptocurrency ecosystem stories. MK holds a graduate degree from New York University’s Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) and has also covered health topics for WebMD and Insider. X You can follow MK at @MManoylov and on LinkedIn.