Founders Fund has led a $5 million purchase of governance tokens in Anvil, a decentralized finance protocol designed to use digital assets as collateral for financial commitments, as the project expands its focus toward businesses and financial institutions. Pantera Capital, Theta Blockchain Ventures, Bullish and Protoscale Capital also participated, while the transaction’s valuation and terms were not disclosed.
The ANVL tokens were purchased from Anvil’s existing treasury rather than being newly issued. The governance token has a circulating supply of 80 billion against a total supply of 100 billion, with holders receiving governance rights over the protocol and its development.
Built on Ethereum, Anvil is designed to allow digital assets to secure commitments including payments and credit. Anvil Research Labs has also launched a software development kit intended to let businesses integrate the protocol without writing blockchain code, lowering the technical barrier for enterprise adoption.
The project has named Consensus, Bitcoin.com, payments company Flexa and other businesses as partners using or integrating its tooling. Bullish is also exploring potential applications of Anvil within its operations. The participation of multiple crypto-focused investors alongside enterprise-oriented development efforts points to an attempt to position Anvil beyond conventional DeFi lending.
Crypto collateral is already widely used across decentralized finance, with DeFi lending protocols holding about $56 billion in assets, according to DefiLlama. Aave and Morpho are among the largest platforms in the sector. Anvil, developed by the Acronym Foundation and made fully open source, currently holds about $14 million in total value locked, leaving it considerably smaller than established DeFi lending platforms.
The distinction in Anvil’s approach is the intended use of collateral. Conventional DeFi lending typically allows users to deposit digital assets, borrow against them, pay interest and potentially face liquidation if collateral values decline. Anvil is instead seeking to use verifiable digital-asset collateral to support broader financial commitments, potentially making integration with business payment and credit products a key area to watch as its enterprise tooling develops.
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