After raising $2.5 million in its latest seed funding round, Unstable Protocol is on a mission to transform the burgeoning Liquid Restaking Token Finance (LRTfi) movement. The project, which is building the leverage layer of (re)staked Ether, attracted investment from multiple ETH-aligned funds including Lattice, Laser Digital (Nomura Group), Blockchain Founders Fund, Assouline Ventures, Agnostic Fund, Artichoke Capital, Black Edge Capital, NewTribe Capital, and NxGen.
Several notable angel investors, protocol executives, media partners, and KOLs also threw their support behind the Protocol, including @dcfgod, @wsbmod, @AltcoinSherpa, @devchart, Trader Lenny, Wes Cowan (Juice Finance), Rahim Noorani (Satori Finance), Tony Jiang (Cognition AI), Adil Virani (blitz.gg), Collin Goltra (YGG), Peter Huo (Whampoa Digital), Andy (TheRollup), Tian Zeng, and BlockBuilders (MarketAcross).
A subsector of DeFi, LRTfi enables users to leverage liquid staking and restaking tokens for innovative yield strategies to maximize returns. Unstable will use the capital it has raised to power its groundbreaking zkOracles and serve as the day-one leverage layer for staked and restaked Ether.
The LRT market has witnessed remarkable growth of approximately $50 billion in the last year, surging from virtually zero to around $15 billion in three months
As an LRTfi-native lending protocol, Unstable Protocol offers users the ability to borrow against their (re)staked ETH and even unlock the utility of their (re)staked ETH on Layer-2 blockchains. The latter is made possible thanks to a strategic partnership with interoperability platform Axelar, whose executive team already backs Unstable.
“Unstable’s pioneering use of zkOracles to enhance DeFi utility for the LST and LRT ETH market is exactly the kind of forward-thinking technology that will push the entire ecosystem forward,” said Mansoor Madhavji, Partner at Blockchain Founders Fund. “We look forward to seeing the impact this will have on liquid staking and the broader DeFi landscape.”
Unstable’s lending protocol engine is powered by a zkSNARK-based validator and EigenLayer AVS balance proofs, valuing collateral based on the underlying backing. This is powered by a key partnership with Succinct Labs that concluded its own $55 million funding round, co-led by Paradigm.
“ZKPs are a powerful technology that will enable DeFi to be more expressive and secure. Unstable’s use of ZK oracles to power their lending protocol engine shows how ZK can enable a new category: zkDeFi,” said Uma Roy, Founder and CEO of Succinct Labs.
About Unstable Protocol:
Unstable Protocol utilizes zkOracles to enhance DeFi utility for the LRTfi market. Backed by several prominent Web3 VCs and angel investors, the protocol enables users to borrow against their LST and LRT collateral and unlock the utility of their (re)staked ETH on L2 chains. Unstable’s lending protocol engine is powered by a zkSNARK-based validator and EigenLayer AVS balance proofs. The Unstable Protocol testnet launches today and will be accessible via its website.
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