The following blog is a duplication of the official announcement and press release from the Shade Protocol team.
Greetings community,
Shade Protocol has recently closed a $5,000,000 private raise to build privacy-preserving DeFi applications on Secret Network – starting with Silk, a privacy-preserving stablecoin pegged to a basket of global currencies and commodities. This $5M in capital will be used to support core protocol contributors and developers to continue their mission of bringing DeFi to privacy on Secret Network — unlocking untapped potential in the world of stablecoins, synthetics, and DeFi.
These key partners (20) are as follows:
- SCRT Labs
- Figment Labs
- Composable Labs
- AW3 Labs
- NGC Ventures
- Sky Vision Capital
- A41 Ventures
- SkyBridge20 Ventures
- 0xVentures
- Bison Fund
- Citadel.One
- Shima Capital
- Momentum6
- Basics Capital
- Taureon
- Divergence Capital
- Boring DAO
- Quant Capital
- AVentures
Key advisors are Tor Bair of Secret Foundation, Nick Cote, and Xavier Advisory. There are other advisors and contributors that wished to remain anonymous — we thank these individuals for their support. Through the amazing networks of these partners and advisors, the core contributors are confident they can achieve meaningful integrations and effective product partnerships.
As a result of this capital raise, across all key Shade primitives currently in development, there are collectively 20+ developers, project coordinators, marketers, and business development professionals building Shade Protocol full time or contracted — making this team of decentralized contributors one of the largest teams on Secret Network!
“I’ve always said if we don’t exist in 2.5 years, then in my mind, we succeeded. I’d much rather we went for it and failed than have played things out the ‘safe way’ and lost because we didn’t move quick enough. The capital raised is intended to scale Shade Protocol as aggressively and quickly as possible. We currently are living in a very narrow window in history where privacy-preserving DeFi is as unexplored as it is. The core contributors plan on capitalizing on this opportunity with everything we got — we are deeply thankful for the key partners and community for empowering us to build. Collectively, there is a commitment to excellence and I’m confident the vision that is set before us is achievable.”
– Carter Woetzel (Lead Researcher of Shade Protocol)
Quote from Citadel.one:
“Citadel.one team believes that a never before seen combination of privacy by default combined with a stablecoin pegged to a basket of fiat currencies and commodities (such as gold) can make SILK one of the most demanded and liquid stablecoins within the market. We are happy to support Shade Protocol as it has the potential to strengthen the Secret Network ecosystem and grant the highly appreciated default privacy to the existing crypto world.”
Quote from Shima Capital:
“At Shima, we believe in the value of preserving privacy in Web3.0 and DeFi and trust in the ability of the Shade team to consistently build strong products– starting with Silk. We are excited to be partnered with Shade, and to help drive their growth as a key future player in DeFi.”
Quote from SkyBridge20:
“Strangers can’t view our bank account & transaction history, so why should they be able to view our crypto? If crypto is truly wanting to be adopted by the masses it will need privacy. Shade Protocol bursting onto the scene will bring a plethora of DeFi applications, all with privacy built-in. With Shade comes Silk, true decentralized money for private transactions. All powered by Secret Network. It’s time to discover the dark side of the moon! 🌑”
J. Andrews, Sr. Analyst, Skybridge20 Ventures
Quote from Andromeda Protocol:
“As one of the most ambitious projects in the space going multi-chain, Andromeda is extremely excited about integrating Shade/Silk into our platform making it easy for users to interact with the IBC ecosystem. Projects like Shade/Silk are vital to the end game we seem to all be playing.”
Quote from Composable Labs:
“We are excited by the innovation taking place with Shade protocol and its utility across the SCRT network. We at Composable Labs are deeply committed to power holistic evolution of the DeFi space. Our team is proud to be a part of the rapid growth of the protocol, look forward at collaborating further in the near future.”-0xbrainjar, Founder & Head of Product at Composable Labs
Quote from AW3L:
“We’re thrilled to be backing the Secure Secrets team who has been a pivotal contributor in the Secret network since 2019. Shade Protocol’s vision to build an ecosystem of privacy-preserving DeFi primitives within the Secret ecosystem is set to form the railways for mass adoption of the SNIP-20 standard within the industry. At AW3L, we’re humbled to be partnering up with ambitious teams such as Shade who pushes the privacy DeFi narrative further.”- Shota Kimura Bauer (Co-founder of AW3L)
Shade Grants
Finally, we are excited to share an opportunity for developers and builders to integrate and build Shade Protocol primitives — the Shade Grants program!
Funded in $SHD managed by core contributors, Shade Grants will be used to support critical growth initiatives for Silk adoption, Shade Protocol integrations, community initiatives, and user tooling. Shade Grants will target core Shade Protocol metrics such as revenue, TVL, accessibility, and availability.
Interested developers or community members may submit applications today! Learn more about the Shade Grants program and the various categories:
What’s Next?
This exciting announcement carries forward our momentum from our initial announcement of Shade Protocol in September. With more key primitives being funded and built, more community members getting involved with Shade Protocol, and more supporters and partners than ever helping to ensure our global growth, the future has never been brighter for Shade Protocol and Silk.
Join the Shade Community
The Shade Protocol community invites you to join the telegram and follow the Shade Protocol to stay up to date with the roadmap and announcements!
Shade Protocol LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/shadeprotocol
Shade Protocol Telegram: https://t.me/ShadeProtocol
Shade Protocol Discord: https://discord.gg/QEuqMCEH
Who knows what alpha will be revealed next? 🤫
