Founders Fund Leads $5 Million Anvil Token Purchase

Founders Fund led a $5 million purchase of ANVL governance tokens from Anvil, an Ethereum-based decentralized finance protocol, in a transaction that also included Pantera Capital, Theta Blockchain Ventures, Bullish and Protoscale Capital. Anvil also introduced a software development kit intended to help businesses integrate its technology without writing blockchain code. The token purchase was announced on Monday, October 5. It was not an equity investment: the participating investors acquired ANVL, which gives holders governance rights over protocol decisions. Anvil said the tokens came from its existing treasury reserves rather than a new issuance. The parties did not disclose a valuation or other financial terms. Anvil is designed to use digital assets as collateral for financial commitments such as payments and credit. Rather than requiring a business to borrow against deposited cryptocurrency, the protocol can reserve collateral to back a guarantee. Its structure has been described as an onchain letter of credit, in which assets are set aside to support a payment commitment.