The DEX protocol is looking to bootstrap liquidity for budding decentralized applications built on the NEAR blockchain
Capital will go toward hiring efforts, product development, partnerships and growth of its ecosystem, Orderly said

Orderly Network, a permissionless, decentralized exchange protocol built on the NEAR blockchain, has picked up $20 million in a seed funding round from some of the industry’s top venture capitalists.

Three Arrows Capital, Pantera Capital, Dragonfly Capital, Sequoia China, Jump Crypto, Alameda Research and GSR Ventures co-led the round, betting that the protocol can enhance the crypto trading experience.

Funding will go toward the protocol’s recruitment efforts as well as the development of new and existing products, Orderly said in a statement Thursday. Capital will also be allocated to drive partnerships and grow its ecosystem.

Orderly Network uses a decentralized on-chain order book to provide liquidity and lets traders execute orders directly utilizing smart contracts while providing desired flexibility with order sizes and pricing. Its platform features a risk engine, matching engine and shared asset pools for decentralized applications (dApps) to build on top of in a modular fashion.

Orderly’s composability, the protocol’s developers said, will let developers build dApps for financial instruments such as derivatives, spot and margin trading as well as lending and borrowing.

“For a chain to accommodate applications seeking mass adoption, they need ready access to liquidity,” Woo Network’s head of marketing and growth Ben Yorke told Blockworks.

“Orderly advances this concept by being able to backstop institutional liquidity including spot, margin, and derivatives, with an order book matching engine that can accommodate high throughput and rate limits.”

Founded in October last year, the project is the incubation lovechild of NEAR and the WOO Network — a liquidity provider connecting traders, exchanges and institutions. The project plans to integrate with existing bridges to provide deposits and withdrawals from most layer-1 blockchains.

DEX (decentralized exchange) volumes are down sharply so far in June and have been generally on the decline since the market peak in November 2021, according to data from Dune Analytics. Automated market maker-based DEX Uniswap continues to dominate, claiming more than half of all trading volume.

Order book trading interfaces built on top of automated market maker liquidity pools are a relatively new concept in the industry.

“Infrastructure being built for traders by traders — results in better products that are designed to meet the specific needs and provide the best possible trading experience,” Three Arrows Capital co-founder Kyle Davies said. “Pairing this product-first ethos with best-in-class liquidity options and a team with a proven track record, we believe that Orderly is primed for success.”

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