AI · The Block
Solana’s Orca merges with Loopscale in push to finance AI, robotics and defense
Compiled by KHAO Editorial — aggregated from 1 source. See llms.txt for citation guidance.
★ Tier-1 Source
Solana -based decentralized exchange Orca and lending platform Loopscale have merged under the new name Formation.
Key facts
- Orca has processed more than $550 billion in trading volume since 2021, while Loopscale reports more than $150 million in deposits and facilitating over $2 billion in loans
- Orca raised $18 million in 2021 in a round co-led by Polychain Capital, Placeholder and the now-defunct Three Arrows Capital
- Liquidity alone isn’t enough to scale an asset," said Orca’s Christopher Montagano, who will serve as Formation’s chief strategy and legal officer
- The companies want to move beyond crypto trading and lending into more capital-intensive business sectors like AI, energy, robotics and defense
Summary
Formation looks to combine Orca's trading infrastructure with Loopscale's lending and investment vaults to give emerging assets a route from issuance to financing and trading, all under one umbrella. The companies want to move beyond crypto trading and lending into more capital-intensive business sectors like AI, energy, robotics and defense. "The frontier economy is creating new business models and financing needs more rapidly than traditional market infrastructure is evolving to serve them," Truitt said. Formation says traditional financing can be too expensive for smaller deals in many cases.