Bessie Liu

<div id="highlights-block_63486295154b3" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>Existing investors Dragonfly Capital, Nascent and Ethereal Ventures participated</li>
 <li>The raise will be used to expand MetaStreet’s products</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



MetaStreet, a metaverse-oriented decentralized interest rate protocol, has raised a fresh round of venture funding as the startup readies its latest product.&nbsp;



The $10 million capital raise — ahead of the launch of what MetaStreet dubs “PowerSweep” — brings the company’s one-year funding haul to $24 million.&nbsp;



The round received participation from existing investors from Dragonfly Capital, Nascent and Ethereal Ventures. New investors include Fintech Collective, DCG, TheLAO, Focus Labs, Mirana Ventures, Metaversal, OpenSea Ventures, Ledgerprime, Meta4 and Flying Falcon.



In an exclusive interview with Blockworks, Conor Moore, co-founder of MetaStreet, said all the capital raised will be going toward product development, marketing and hiring.



“Previously we were only focused on the capital deposit side of the equation, and now we’re expanding our offering to help solve problems directly for borrowers,” Moore said.



MetaStreet operates as a capital provider and is the architect behind the infrastructure required to automate the underwriting and execution of fixed-rate, NFT-backed loans. 



Its latest product, PowerSweep, is vying to increase the purchasing power of NFT traders by allowing them to buy and sell NFTs on margin via Reservoir, a Web3-native NFT order book protocol.



“The integration with MetaStreet basically allows users to make a transaction but do it with leverage instead of all their own capital,” Moore said. “It&#8217;s focused on borrowers and the origination side of the equation.”



Moore said that the next iteration of their product would be to improve scale and efficiency on the borrower side.



MetaStreet has facilitated around $40 million of lending volume to date, according to Moore. In fact, the protocol was the facilitator of <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/nft-lending-market-reveals-a-need-for-liquidity/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">two of the largest</a> NFT-backed loans at 8.3 million DAI and 8 million DAI respectively.&nbsp;



After launching its vault product, Moore says at any given time there are roughly a few million dollars in the vault from users.&nbsp;



“We’re fortunate to be deeply entrenched in NFT finance at such a formative period of time in the lifecycle of the metaverse,” Moore said.&nbsp; “This is one of those unique moments in an industry’s growth where everyone who’s here today is simply focused on bringing new users into the space, an entire blue ocean of opportunity.”



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Subscribe to daily Solana news</a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

MetaStreet Secures $10M for NFT Loans in the Metaverse

Morgan Chittum

<div id="highlights-block_6247165f3c005" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The loan has a 10% APR with a 90-day duration period</li>
 <li>MetaStreet, which helped facilitate the loan, previously announced an NFT-backed loan of $8 million</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



The pseudonymous consignor who <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/sothebys-cryptopunk-auction-canceled-after-seller-withdraws/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">withdrew</a> his lot of 104 CryptoPunk NFTs at Sotheby’s in February has taken out an $8.32 million loan backed by the same blockchain-based collectibles, Blockworks has exclusively learned.



The loan, which was facilitated by NFT (non-fungible token) lending protocol MetaStreet on marketplace NFTfi, has a 10% annual percentage rate (APR) with a 90-day duration.



The group of Punks, which were first acquired together in a single transaction by anon collector “0x650d,” have an estimated value of $20 million to $30 million, per a release from Sotheby’s <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/sothebys-set-to-auction-off-104-cryptopunks-valued-at-20m-to-30m/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">announcing the auction</a>.



The consignor pulled his lot minutes before the sale was slated to begin at Sotheby’s, shocking those in the New York auction room at the time.



Derek Parsons, senior press officer of Sotheby’s Americas, told Blockworks in a Feb. 23 email that the lot was withdrawn before the sale after “discussions with the consignor.”



“Shortly after pulling the Sotheby’s auction last month, I began looking for a way to retain my CryptoPunk exposure while simultaneously unlocking liquidity,” 0x650d told Blockworks in a statement.



Released in 2017 by studio Larva Labs, CryptoPunks currently have a floor price of $231,196 or 68 ether, according to blockchain data dashboard <a href="https://nftpricefloor.com/cryptoPunks" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">NFT Price Floor</a>.



&#8220;The demand for NFT loans keeps soaring and is testimony to the fundamental value borrowers and lenders ascribe to NFTs as a new asset class here to stay,” Stephen Young, founder and CEO of NFTfi, told Blockworks.



Collectors want to free up capital “more efficiently” and don’t want their assets to accumulate “virtual dust,” according to MetaStreet co-founder and CEO David Choi.



“I think [NFT] borrowing markets will just grow bigger and bigger, which means its purchasing power will increase,” Choi previously told Blockworks. “It’s like instead of putting all of your money into buying a house, you get a mortgage, which means you don’t have to pay that 90% until later. [With MetaStreet], I think we’re extending the purchasing power of the entire industry.”



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Subscribe to daily Solana news</a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

NFT Whale Who Ditched Auction of 104 CryptoPunks Lands $8M Loan

<div id="highlights-block_621e4c2b85abc" class="highlights">
 <ul>
 <li>The loan was completed by NFT liquidity scaling startup MetaStreet on lending platform NFTfi</li>
 <li>“By having an active borrowing and lending market [in NFTs], you create productive assets that are otherwise viewed as unproductive,” Conor Moore, co-founder of MetaStreet, told Blockworks</li>
 </ul>
 
</div>



In what has been billed as the largest-ever NFT-backed loan, an anonymous borrower just took out an $8 million loan <a href="https://cms.blockworks.co/wheres-the-liquidity-crypto-lending-explained/#Crypto-Collateral">collateralized</a> by their collection of 101 CryptoPunks.



The loan has an APR of 10% and a 30-day duration. It was facilitated by liquidity scaling solution MetaStreet on peer-to-peer lending platform NFTfi.



The financing is seen by industry participants as a bellwether of the future of lending secured by digital collectibles — a market expected to grow as institutional interest in the sector continues to build.



Conor Moore, co-founder and chief operating officer of MetaStreet, told Blockworks the loan is “orders of magnitude larger” than previous NFT (non-fungible token) financing. MetaStreet helped to complete another record-breaking loan last year — a $1.42 million loan collateralized by an Autoglyph.



Moore did not disclose the identity of the borrower, who he referred to as “whale,” or someone who holds large amounts of cryptocurrency.



MetaStreet, which has eight full-time employees, <a href="https://mirror.xyz/0x66ceac5EE8F093059C4BC9628C06e63076505B15/kpweCex6kclTrtbO-lkoPdu0jgl3B0IBLdjRbvsV4j8" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">secured</a> $3 million in seed financing and $11 million in initial protocol liquidity earlier this year. The firm provides a layer of financial infrastructure to NFTs, specifically lending protocols such as NFTfi and Arcade.



“It’s sort of like how Fannie Mae works in the US housing market. You&#8217;ve got a big aggregation vehicle through which originators can sell loans that then get batched up and split into different tranches,” Moore said. “Those different tranches allow for more optimal capital efficiency.”



NFT collectors, co-founder and CEO of MetaStreet David Choi said, want to free up capital more efficiently and don’t want their cryptoassets to accumulate “virtual dust.”



“I think [NFT] borrowing markets will just grow bigger and bigger, which means its purchasing power will increase,” Choi said. “It&#8217;s like instead of putting all of your money into buying a house, you get a mortgage, which means you don&#8217;t have to pay that 90% until later. [With MetaStreet], I think we&#8217;re extending the purchasing power of the entire industry.”



<hr class="wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity"/>



Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/empire">Subscribe to the Empire newsletter</a>.



Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/onthemargin">Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter</a>.



Get alpha directly in your inbox with the <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/research">0xResearch newsletter</a> — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.



The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. <a href="https://blockworks.co/newsletter/lightspeed">Subscribe to daily Solana news</a> from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.