Obol Labs, a research and software development firm focused on Ethereum and other Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchain networks, has raised $12.5 million in a Series A funding round. The fresh capital will help Obol to build out “Decentralized Validator Technology (DVT)” on Ethereum.
The cryptocurrency market has experienced an impressive uptick following the brutal drawdown of 2022. Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) along with other major tokens have performed robustly since the onset of the New Year. It is not just digital tokens, but non-fungible tokens along with decentralized finance (DeFi) activity have also increased. Experts anticipate other sectors including Web3 gaming and metaverse will witness a substantial push. Although the aftershocks from last year may continue to reverberate in the short term, the second half could see a recovery.
Fresh Funding to Make Pos Blockchains More Secure
We're happy to announce that we've raised a $12.5M Series A led by @PanteraCapital and @archetypevc to accelerate our journey of scaling & decentralizing PoS networks!!
Some details on why we're excited 🎉🧵#RunDVThttps://t.co/56QgZq7ygU pic.twitter.com/60xFdBkFaX
— Obol Labs (@ObolNetwork) January 17, 2023
In the latest development, Obol Labs’ announced the company has closed a $12.5 million venture capital funding round to make Ethereum along with other PoS blockchains more secure, resellient and decentralized. The company plans to build out decentralized validator technology (DVT), a kind of technology that it believes will solve some of the biggest loopholes for Ethereum’s new validator class.
According to the official blogpost, the funding round included participation from VC heavyweights including Pantera Capital and Archetype, who co-led the series A round. Other participants include BlockTower, Nascent, Placeholder, Spartan, and IEX, and follow-on investment from Coinbase Ventures and Ethereal Ventures. As of today, Obol Labs has raised a total of $19 million to develop the DVT technology in order to decentralize and secure blockchain staking.
What is DVT?
The blogpost stated, DVT is a technology primitive that allows an Ethereum Proof-of-Stake validator to be run simultaneously on more than one machine. Its primary objective is to solve the issue of single points of failure in staking infrastructure.
In addition, this technology allows network validators of any magnitude to increase resilience, distribution of stake, and security on the network. Moreover, DVT is an important tool for Web3 scalability which will ensure more decentralization. Obol wrote,
“DVT is a technology primitive that allows an Ethereum Proof-of-Stake validator to be run simultaneously on more than one node or machine. The major breakthrough is the ability to split up a single validator key, making it possible for a group of people to share validation rights of an Ethereum validator.”
