OpenTrade, an institutional-grade platform for onchain and real-world asset (RWA)-backed lending and stablecoin yield products, has raised fresh capital to expand its yield infrastructure.
The platform secured $17 million in its latest strategic funding round led by Mercury Fund and Notion Capital, OpenTrade said in a Wednesday announcement seen by Cointelegraph.
The new funding will support the continued expansion of OpenTrade’s permissioned and permissionless yield infrastructure, as well as the growth of its vault-focused service Curation+, CEO David Sutter told Cointelegraph.
“The company also plans to expand its asset management and trading team, increase engineering capacity, and build a dedicated customer success function to support its growing client base,” Sutter said.
CEO positive on regulation amid CLARITY Act debate over stablecoin rules
The raise comes as US lawmakers debate how stablecoin rewards should be regulated under the CLARITY Act, a broader digital asset market structure bill that has been delayed partly by disputes over whether crypto firms should be allowed to offer interest-like incentives on stablecoin balances. Sutter expressed optimism over recent progress around the stalled legislation.
CLARITY is nearing a Senate Banking Committee vote after a compromise between crypto and banking stakeholders. The deal would allow usage-based rewards like cashback or discounts on stablecoin activity but prohibit yield on idle balances.
OpenTrade surpassed $200 million in total value locked (TVL) in April. Source: OpenTrade
“Our structure is derived from securities lending in traditional finance, but adapted to the lending of stablecoins instead of securities,” Sutter said, adding that there may be market-specific nuances affecting availability to institutional or qualified investors.
Sutter told Cointelegraph that the legal architecture underpinning the platform has been purpose-built to offer its products to clients globally while maintaining compliance with existing traditional finance and digital asset regulatory standards.
“There are strong regulatory tailwinds for the industry at large, which will be conducive to continued growth for stablecoins,” Sutter added.
Related: Ripple CEO says market structure bill not ‘done deal,’ despite compromise
Circle Ventures was an early investor in OpenTrade
Founded in 2023, OpenTrade seeks to provide scalable and compliant yield products for fintechs and institutional investors.
OpenTrade’s infrastructure routes user deposits into tokenized vaults that allocate capital across a mix of yield sources, primarily RWAs such as fixed-income instruments, alongside selected decentralized finance (DeFi) strategies. Each vault follows a defined allocation strategy and operates through smart contract-based mechanisms that manage deposits, track positions and distribute returns.
OpenTrade vaults (an excerpt). Source: OpenTrade
The latest funding round brings OpenTrade’s total funding to $30 million and included backing from prominent industry investor a16z Crypto. The London-based company previously raised $7 million in a strategic round led by Mercury Fund and Notion Capital in June 2025, following a $4 million seed round in November 2024.
OpenTrade also secured funding from investors such as Circle Ventures and Polygon Ventures in May 2023, while announcing plans to launch a platform for USDC-denominated investments and tokenized financial assets.
OpenTrade co-founders Dave Sutter and Jeff Handler previously worked at Centre, a now-dissolved consortium of Circle and Coinbase providing standards governance for the USDC stablecoin.
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