Crypto Exchange Unizen Receives $200M 'Capital Commitment' From Investment Group GEM

The investment is milestone-based and performance-related as a means of ensuring the funding is optimized fully.

AccessTimeIconJun 27, 2022 at 3:00 p.m. UTC
Updated May 11, 2023 at 6:47 p.m. UTC
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Centralized-decentralized (CeDeFi) exchange Unizen has received $200 million from alternative investment group Global Emerging Markets (GEM) to accelerate development of its trade aggregation system.

Not a straight funding round, GEM's $200 million is described as a "capital commitment," which is milestone-based and performance-related as a means of ensuring the funding is optimized fully, Unizen announced on Monday.

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  • The funds will be used to improve Unizen's systems, grow its team, market its products and accelerate its in-house aggregation system, which is designed to find the most efficient trade routes across different centralized and decentralized crypto exchanges, such as Binance, Uniswap and PancakeSwap.

    Unizen describes itself as a "CeDeFi" platform, which combines the functionality of centralized and decentralized exchanges.

    The exchange is built on BNB Chain, the blockchain network of crypto exchange Binance. CEO of Binance, Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, is thought to have coined the term CeDeFi to describe a system where users can gain the benefits of decentralized finance (DeFi) without having to interact directly with DeFi protocols and the risks associated therewith.

    CeDeFi aims to address issues of scalability that exist on DeFi protocols built on Ethereum by sacrificing some decentralization while also being able to draw more users thus offering greater liquidity.

    UPDATE (June 27, 15:04 UTC): Adds dropped letter in headline.


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    Jamie Crawley

    Jamie Crawley is a CoinDesk news reporter based in London.


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