The venture capital divisions of the leading banking giants in Thailand have invested in a decentralized finance platform known as Forward. The funding round also saw the participation of some leading traditional companies in tech and other industries.
Thailand banking giants invest in $5M funding round for Forward
The VC divisions of Kasikombank and the Bank of Ayudhya have supported funding round by the Forward DeFi company. The two are some of the largest banking giants in Thailand, and they have participated in a $5 million seed funding round.
The other companies participating in the funding round include Ratanakorn Technology Group, GBV Capital, and Varys Capital. Primestreet Capital led the $5 million seed funding round.
Forward says it is the first DeFi platform to welcome investments from two leading Thai banks and global funds following the recent seed funding round. Forward is a DeFi company working on creating a protocol to support trading for decentralized derivatives that match long and short positions.
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The DeFi company has added that the recent funding round shows that it does not have to depend upon market makers or limit order books as the crypto winter continues. Forward said that the trading volume for derivative products was three times higher than the sport trading volumes, and the number was still growing.
The founder and CEO of Forward, Chanon Charatsuttikul, commented on this development, saying that Forward would focus on developing a decentralized derivative platform. The platform will be non-custodial and run on a system that bars transactions from sanctioned addresses and countries.
The funding round comes amid fluctuating levels in the Thai cryptocurrency market. In August, the oldest bank in Thailand, Siam Commercial Bank, announced it was letting go of a $500 million deal to acquire the Bitkub cryptocurrency exchange.
The cancellation of this acquisition deal also comes around a month after the Thai Securities and Exchange Commission issued a request to the Bitkub exchange urging it to review the listing process following the listing of the KUB coin. The Huobi exchange also announced it would halt operations in Thailand following regulatory concerns.
DeFi activities affected by the crypto bear market
DeFi activities have been affected by the ongoing bear market. The notable drop in cryptocurrency prices has resulted in some DeFi platforms, such as Celsius and Hodlnaut, halting withdrawals because of the ongoing market dip.
The DeFi total value locked has also been downtrend since the beginning of the year. At the time of writing, the total DeFi TVL stood at $60 billion, according to DeFi Llama, with Ethereum accounting for the largest share of the TVL.
The current figure is a notable decline given that the DeFi TVL stood at around $169 billion at the beginning of the year. However, the drop in TVL does not seem to affect interest in DeFi by venture capitalists.
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