East meets West as eight top projects join global DeFi alliance

The Open DeFi Alliance has announced the launch of a western arm and onboarding of eight new member firms.

Launched last month, the alliance seeks to unite leaders of the DeFi sector by forming a global cooperative consortium focused on innovation, risk management and liquidity strategies.

New members include decentralized finance notables Aave, Balancer, BlockScience, DyDx, Ocean Protocol, Outlier Ventures, Quantstamp and SuperRare, with the organization now spanning 16 firms in total. It now includes four of the 20-largest DeFi protocols by locked capital.

Aave founder and CEO Stani Kulechov praised the alliance’s support for the borderless ethos of DeFi, noting he is “excited” to collaboratively build “financial tools and infrastructure” as part of the alliance. David Gogel, growth lead at dYdX, emphasized the opportunity afforded by greater collaboration with China, stating:

“China plays an important role in the global DeFi ecosystem and remains a key market for our long-term success. [...] China has a massive user base that will bring liquidity, volume, and more innovation to global markets for greater growth potential.”

The consortium’s original members included Sequoia Capital, Blockpower Capital, dForce, MCDEX, Antelope Holdings, DeBank, and MoonSwap and founder Conflux Network, with support also provided by the Shanghai Science and Technology Committee.

2020 has seen a spate of DeFi consortiums founded, with Ren and Polychain Capital launching the Ren Alliance in March, and TD Ameritrade and Cumberland DRW revealing the Chicago DeFi Alliance in April.

Major crypto exchange Huobi also launched a DeFi organization intended to bridge East and West in August. Last month, Huobi’s Global DeFi Alliance announced its membership had tripled to 15 with the entrance of major players including Aave, Balancer, Synthetic and Curve Finance.