Staking Solution Chorus One Launches Up to $30M Proof-of-Stake Investment Fund

Chorus One, which provides proof-of-stake (PoS) staking systems to over 28 decentralized networks, has launched a new fund to invest $25 million to $30 million from its balance sheet in PoS networks, protocols and related products over the next three years, according to a draft announcement provided to CoinDesk.

The Ethereum blockchain plans to soon switch from a proof-of-work consensus mechanism to proof-of-stake, bringing more attention to the process in which asset owners stake their coins for the right to validate new transaction blocks and add them to the blockchain. Leading PoS blockchains include Avalanche, Cardano, Polkadot and Solana.

Founded in 2018 by Brian Crain and Meher Roy, Chorus One came to life as PoS staking was finding its footing. The company was one of the stakers in the early incentivized testnet for the Cosmos network of interoperable blockchains.

“Our business at the start had almost no revenues [and was] struggling to survive,” Xavier Meegan, research and ventures lead at Chorus One, told CoinDesk in an interview. “The last two years or so, our balance sheet has grown substantially. We now have enough revenue to invest off of our balance sheet.”

Chorus One has previously deployed “millions” of dollars to 26 projects before formally setting up a venture investment arm, according to Meegan. The company has prioritized investments in networks where the company runs nodes, the mechanisms that make staking possible. The staking provides deep technical knowledge, rewards, tokens and revenue, and the additional investment can result in even more tokens, Meegan said.

The new Chorus Ventures fund also offers operational support beyond staking. For example, the team’s researchers can advise networks about token economics and mechanism design.

PoS networks have been a key investment area for Chorus Ventures, including potential accelerators for PoS adoption such as liquid staking and tools such as wallets and user experience design. Other areas of interest include interoperability solutions that allow PoS networks to communicate and middleware that helps developers create decentralized applications (dapps) more efficiently.

“If we’re going to secure a network and run a node, we’re putting in our own resources, our own work … to make sure the network goes live,” said Meegan. “This is stuff that [venture capitalists] VCs don’t do.”

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