Solana-Based Drift Protocol Raises $3.8 Million — Project Reveals Drift Alpha Ticket NFTs

While the blockchain network Solana’s native token has skyrocketed in value this week jumping 31.4%, the Solana-based perpetual swap platform Drift Protocol announced it raised $3.8 million from strategic investors. At the same time, Drift announced the launch of its alpha mainnet after several months of “grind, hard work, debugging, building security guardrails.”

While centralized exchanges like Binance, FTX, Bybit, and Bitmex offer crypto-based perpetual swaps, decentralized finance (defi) competitors are aiming to take the large amounts of trading volume these trading platforms command.

There are a number of decentralized apps (dapps) attempting to move forward in this direction like dYdX, Mango Markets, and MCDEX. On October 25, a Solana-based perpetual swap platform called the Drift Protocol launched its mainnet.

“We successfully launched our mainnet at the Solana’s Chicago Hacker House, working with the guidance of Bartosz, Jordan, and alongside the rest of the residents (HXRO and Mango teams),” the project noted on Monday. Additionally, the project announced the “Drift Alpha Ticket” non-fungible token (NFT) collection and detailed the platform’s team raised $3.8 million from investors. Drift explained on Monday:

The Drift Alpha Ticket is a collection of 1,500 NFTs exclusively released by Drift through rewarding early Discord users and its partnership with defi and NFT projects on the Solana network.

According to Drift, the $3.8 million in financing was led by the thesis-driven investment firm Multicoin Capital. Alongside Multicoin Capital, Jump Capital, QCP Capital, Not3Lau, and Alameda Research joined.

The project aims to support tokens stemming from SOL and ETH and aims to be a “one-way path to being Solana’s top decentralised futures exchange.” The Drift Alpha Ticket, Drift details, “is a way for the team to identify and reward its early adopters and believers.”

As far as the Solana network’s native token solana (SOL) the crypto asset has been surging in value this week capturing the sixth position in terms of market cap. Solana jumped 31.4% in value this week, 51.4% over the last month, and 11,467% year-to-date.

What do you think about the Solana-based perpetual swaps dex Drift raising $3.8 million and launching its alpha mainnet on Monday? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.