A Triangle-based crypto project just announced a $3.5 million raise.
The project, called ICHI, plans to use the raise to expand as projects like ShapeShift and Uniswap turn to it for what’s called community-controlled DeFi.
In an interview, Bryan Gross, CEO of DMA Labs in Cary and steward at ICHI, describes DeFi – or decentralized finance – as offering financial instruments without relying on intermediaries such as brokerages or banks.
“Crypto networks, in general, create their own scarce asset, and sometimes that asset is used to govern their project, sometimes it’s used for security purchases,” he said. “But when that community needs to make payroll, pay taxes, do business, they then have to sell their scarce asset to get more usable currency.”
What ICHI does is give that open-source community its own branded dollar, backed by its own scarce commodity, allowing it to essentially eliminate the regulator.
Normal transactions like lending require trusting that a bank will keep money safe and move it appropriately.
“Historically, they haven’t been very trustworthy,” he said. “We’ve had to create large government regulators to make sure those institutions treat you fairly.”
With DeFi, you are always in control of your funds – making payouts directly, with no entity in the middle to ensure a transaction is safe. While DeFi has become a big deal when it comes to cryptocurrency adoption, it can be risky and expensive for projects that rely on it to conduct business.
That’s where ICHI comes in, a project that aims to improve DeFi by giving crypto networks the tools they need to operate their own economies and have better control over their money.
Gross sees crypto as complementing – not coming into conflict with – traditional banks.
“I think the DeFi space will work closely with the centralized finance space,” he said. “A lot of people, they have no interest in safeguarding their finances. They’d rather it be deposited into a bank that is regulated. … DeFi could really be the back end of those banking institutions.”
Gross said innovators are currently in the midst of experiments that will eventually be application interfaces that banks you’re already using “will just adopt.”
ICHI was created by a group of people working in open source throughout the globe. That community formed the foundation, and DMA Labs writes its software.
Participants in ICHI's private token sale included Lattice Capital, Fundamental Labs, GSR Markets Limited, Baller Ventures, Woodstock Fund, TRGC Limited, Ellipti Ventures, Lightshift, Collider Ventures, LD Capital and others.
According to ICHI, decentralized finance protocols currently account for more than $100 billion in value.
ICHI said it has already been used to launch nine branded dollars for the Uniswap, ShapeShift DAO, Filecoin, Fuse, 1inch, DODO communities and others.