TL;DR
- Cascade raised $15 million to build a DeFi neo-brokerage for perpetual markets.
- Users can trade crypto, commodities, forex, and tokenized stocks on a single platform.
- It integrates fiat onboarding via Stripe for seamless deposits and withdrawals.
Cascade, a startup in decentralized finance, began the rollout of a neo-brokerage designed to offer 24/7 perpetual markets across a wide set of asset classes. The company raised $15 million in a seed round led by Polychain and Variant, with added support from Coinbase Ventures, Archetype, and other investors. The plan involves a unified venue where users can trade crypto, commodities, foreign exchange instruments, and tokenized equities linked to firms such as OpenAI, SpaceX, and Stripe.
The team spent over two years building the protocol and now enters a period marked by rapid growth for perps platforms. Monthly activity across services such as Hyperliquid, Aster, and Lighter reached $1.2 trillion in October and a similar figure in November.
Attention from traders grew as exchanges pushed to support a broader mix of markets. Onchain venues began to list synthetic exposure to gold and pork belly futures, while centralized exchanges enabled access to physical commodities by linking to the CME.
A parallel shift appeared in brokerage platforms
Firms like Robinhood moved toward omni-asset accounts, where users can place trades across equities, tokenized assets, foreign exchange, fixed-income products, commodities, and prediction markets. Cascade aims to build its own version of that model inside decentralized rails, while keeping an experience that feels closer to traditional finance tools.
Co-founder Kevin said the goal is clear: a trading account where users can hold equities, trade crypto, borrow against portfolios, and open synthetic perps in a single interface. He added that onboarding needs to feel familiar, with easy logins and direct links to bank accounts.
To support that goal, the team integrated Stripe’s Bridge, allowing deposits and withdrawals in fiat money. Kevin said users can “sign in with Privy, Gmail, whatever, and deposit in fiat to reach all markets,” stressing that the Bridge link plays a central role in the plan.
On Tuesday, Cascade opened its vaults to gather pre-launch deposits and start the onboarding cycle. The team aims to activate its mainnet in Q1 2026, beginning with roughly ten markets and expanding based on demand.
Deployments will follow a permissioned process at first, similar to the method used by Ostium. Price feeds rely on authenticated data from Stork, while liquidations follow oracle prices and use ADL tools to close positions below margin levels.
Cascade plans to support round-the-clock trading for every listed market
Perps contracts follow the familiar model used across crypto, without direct links to underlying assets. A non-custodial matcher will handle price discovery and match orders off-chain to deliver fast execution. Settlement moves back on-chain under the perps contract.
Kevin also described a longer-term plan to merge trading and payments
Cascade aims to issue payment cards linked directly to trading balances, letting users pay for daily expenses with funds inside the account. The intention is to erase the divide between web2 and web3 activity by connecting all financial actions under one profile.
