Founders Fund Leads $5M Anvil Token Purchase

Founders Fund has led a $5 million purchase of ANVL governance tokens from Anvil, an Ethereum-based decentralized finance protocol seeking to expand the use of digital asset collateral among businesses and financial institutions.

Pantera Capital, Theta Blockchain Ventures, Bullish and Protoscale Capital also participated in the transaction, according to an announcement Monday. Financial terms and Anvil’s valuation were not disclosed. The purchased ANVL tokens came from the protocol’s existing treasury rather than a new issuance.

ANVL has a circulating supply of 80 billion tokens from a maximum supply of 100 billion. Token holders receive governance rights, allowing them to participate in decisions affecting the protocol’s development.

Anvil enables cryptocurrencies and other digital assets to serve as collateral for financial commitments such as payments and credit. Anvil Research Labs, which develops enterprise-focused technology for the protocol, has also introduced a software development kit designed to help companies integrate Anvil without writing blockchain code.

“Businesses need to know the commitments behind payments and credit will be honored,” Founders Fund partner Joey Krug said. He added that Anvil allows companies to secure those commitments using verifiable digital asset collateral while its SDK simplifies integration.

Anvil Research Labs said Consensus, Bitcoin.com and payments company Flexa are among the businesses using or integrating its technology. Bullish is also exploring potential applications for Anvil within its operations.

The protocol is targeting a different segment of the crypto collateral market than traditional DeFi lenders. DeFi lending platforms currently hold roughly $56 billion in assets, with Aave and Morpho among the sector’s biggest protocols. Anvil, developed by the Acronym Foundation as an open-source project, currently has approximately $14 million in total value locked.

Instead of primarily allowing users to borrow against deposited crypto, Anvil uses collateral to guarantee financial obligations. Its core product functions as an onchain letter of credit, reserving digital assets to guarantee payment to another party. If the commitment is not fulfilled, the collateral can be claimed.

This structure allows users to provide financial guarantees without necessarily taking out loans or paying interest simply to establish the commitment.