Blockdaemon, a provider of blockchain staking infrastructure, raised $28 million in a Series A round of funding that included Goldman Sachs.
The fundraising round was led by Greenspring Associates and also included Coinfund, CoinShares, BlockFi, Uphold and Voyager Digital.
Blockdaemon simplifies the business of participating in proof-of-stake (PoS), an alternative to energy-intensive proof-of-work mining, achieved by staking assets and having skin in the game when it comes to running a node and validating transactions on a network.
Blockdaemon supports more than 40 PoS networks, including Polkadot, Cardano and Cosmos. But the main event will be Ethereum’s full transition to ETH2.0 in the coming year or so.
When that happens, staking on Ethereum will become simplified to the point where it’s no different to earning interest on a checking account, Blockdaemon founder and CEO Konstantin Richter said in a recent interview with CoinDesk.
“Users won’t have to do anything,” he said. “If they have ETH in a wallet, it’ll earn interest automatically.”