Variational Secures $50 Million Series A to Bring Traditional Market…

Team S · 2026-05-25T15:16:56.000Z

DeFi derivatives protocol Variational has secured $50 million in Series A funding to accelerate expansion of its on-chain derivatives infrastructure and real-world asset (RWA) trading ecosystem. The round was led by Dragonfly Capital, with participation from Bain Capital Crypto, Coinbase Ventures, Peak XV Partners, Hack VC, Brevan Howard Digital, and North Island Ventures. Founded by Edward Yu and Lucas V. Schuermann, Variational is building a decentralized derivatives protocol designed to aggregate liquidity from both crypto-native exchanges and traditional financial institutions. The company aims to modernize derivatives trading by enabling peer-to-peer settlement infrastructure for perpetuals, futures, options, and tokenized real-world assets directly on blockchain rails. The funding coincides with the launch of Variational’s first RWA perpetual markets, allowing users to trade commodities such as gold, silver, copper, and oil alongside crypto assets through a unified cross-margined trading environment. The company says it plans to expand to more than 100 traditional financial markets over the coming months. Unlike many decentralized exchanges that rely on traditional order books, Variational uses an RFQ (Request-for-Quote) architecture that sources liquidity from centralized exchanges, market makers, and institutional dealers to provide deeper and more efficient pricing. The company believes this model can better support institutional-scale adoption of tokenized real-world assets and on-chain derivatives. The startup stated that the fresh capital will support protocol development, institutional onboarding, liquidity expansion, and broader deployment of RWA trading infrastructure as DeFi increasingly converges with traditional financial markets.

Member Login Get Access

Variational Secures $50 Million Series A to Bring Traditional Market… | Newnex