Orderly Network, a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange built on NEAR, said today that it has raised $20 million in new funding to expand its ecosystem and recruit more people for its team.

The strategic funding round was joined by crypto venture capital outfits Three Arrows Capital, Pantera Capital, Dragonfly Capital, Sequoia China, Jump Crypto, Alameda Research, GSR Ventures and MetaWeb.VC.

Founded in April 2022, Orderly acts as a permissionless, decentralized exchange built on the NEAR protocol. It uses an order book built on the blockchain that provides traders a risk engine, matching engine and asset pools that decentralized applications can be built on top of for trades. As a result, it’s a modular and composable trading platform capable of providing spot trading, margin trading, perpetual swaps, lending and borrowing for numerous different cryptocurrencies.

The platform was incubated by NEAR, a blockchain scaling solution, and WOO Network, a digital asset liquidity network. WOO DEX became the first dapp to launch on Orderly and became the interface of the platform, allowing users to access the decentralized exchange’s capabilities.

“Bringing deep liquidity and low-fee trading options to the NEAR blockchain by introducing DeFi protocols like WOO DEX will allow users to enjoy an efficient, permissionless trading experience while also giving builders the best possible platform and build experience to launch their products and services on,” said Ran Yi, chief ecosystem officer of WOO Network.

Decentralized exchanges are a significant part of decentralized finance, also called DeFi, where traders exchange cryptocurrency assets without the need for traditional institutions, such as banks, or other middlemen. For example, users may want to exchange Ethereum for other tokens such as Dogecoin, or lesser-known tokens, and many of these are not listed on large centralized exchanges such as Coinbase, FTX and Binance.

Orderly said it will use the new financing to focus on hiring more staff, develop its products and establish new partnerships in order to grow its ecosystem. The company said that will enable it to build out its exchange and launch new community lending pools for token holders to lend assets to market makers that could then enjoy sustainable yields with less risk.

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