EXCLUSIVE: 0x Founder Amir Bandeali On The 2016 Ethereum dApp Powering Coinbase NFT, $70M Series B

Founded in 2016, 0x is one of the first ever DeFi protocols created. Pronounced “zero-ex”, this tech stack reduces transaction costs for users of decentralized exchanges (DEXs) on Ethereum ETH/USD. 

0x Raises $70M: We spoke with 0x founder Amir Bandeali at the Permissionless Conference in West Palm Beach to learn more about the $70-million Series B fundraise his team recently completed.

“We're still pretty aggressively growing as a company. You know, it's a pretty complex technology stack. We're working on a few different core products — the 0x API, our aggregation API, as well as Matcha, our user-facing decentralized exchange aggregator — and just growing the team to continue iterating on these things for 0x API to be the highest coverage possible liquidity aggregator out there. It's already live on seven different blockchains."

The protocol focuses on liquidity aggregation and provides the lowest slippage for DeFi protocols.

"Our thesis is that basically every single application that involves blockchain will at some point want to tap into liquidity. I think it'll become one of the main business models in this space," Bandeali said. 

0x And Coinbase: 0x protocol is also fundamental to Coinbase Global Inc COIN's new NFT platform, which Bandeali commented on. 

“So the 0x protocol is a system of smart contracts that underpins everything we do. It's what actually facilitates the trade settlement and makes the trades non-custodial. No one ever is taking control of a user's assets. And at 0x protocol, we want to broadly support all different forms of a decentralized exchange and NFT swaps fall into that as well. So we quite recently added NFT functionality into the protocol itself, and that's what Coinbase is using. So, they're driving all their orders through 0x protocol.”

The protocol is now decentralized but maintained by founder Bandeali and the core team that launched it. The protocol earns revenue from the dApps that plug in 0x’s liquidity for a variety of financial applications.