BSX Exchange, a decentralized derivatives trading protocol built on the Ethereum Layer 2 network Base, has raised $6.2 million in pre-seed and seed funding rounds.
The latest seed round, worth $4 million, was led by Blockchain Capital, BSX announced on Wednesday. The pre-seed round, which raised $2.2 million a year ago, is being announced together with the seed round.
Investors across the two rounds include Bankless Ventures, No Limit Holdings, Cadenza Ventures, Breed VC, and Arthur Hayes’ family office Maelstrom. Its angel investors include Coinbase head of listings Zach Segal, Delphi founder Tommy Shaughnessy, and CoinFund investor Isaiah Washington.
The rounds were structured as a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) offering, giving investors token warrants, according to BSX core contributor Henry N. He declined to comment on the valuation.
As part of the deal, Hayes joined as an advisor while Blockchain Capital received one representative or observer board seat on BSX, Henry said.
What is BSX?
BSX is a decentralized derivatives trading platform on Base focused on crypto perpetuals. Since launching in April, BSX says it has facilitated over $4 billion in trading volume and recently crossed the $1 million revenue mark. With fresh funding in place, BSX plans to expand beyond derivatives trading.
The team plans to launch a spot aggregator next month, Henry said, adding that earn and staking products are also in the pipeline and set to launch in the coming months.
“BSX Earn includes a borrowing and lending protocol where traders can access capital to trade on Base and BSX,” Henry said. “The second product is BSX Vaults, which will allow traders to earn rewards by depositing funds into automatically managed trading vaults.”
Henry added that BSX staking will be introduced around or after the token generation event (TGE) later this year. BSX also plans to launch a Layer 3 network on Base to optimize the onchain BSX order book. “This upgrade will enable permissionless listing of new assets and further expand our decentralization roadmap. The target launch for this infrastructure upgrade is Q1 2025,” Henry said.
Looking ahead, BSX also intends to launch its own trading game on Telegram and an exclusive NFT collection to attract new users to Base and BSX, Henry added.
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BSX Token Launch
The BSX token is expected to launch around November or December, Henry said. Key use cases of the token will include onchain governance of the BSX protocol and value delivery to token holders through mechanisms like buybacks, airdrops, and revenue sharing, he added.
BSX is currently running season 2 of its trading rewards program, in which it expects to issue a total of 16 million points by the end of this month. The first season of the rewards program issued a total of 8 million points, Henry said. A third season will take place beginning three months before the TGE.
When asked if those points will be converted into the BSX token, Henry said they could be pending approval from the BSX Protocol Foundation.
The core team of BSX is based in Vietnam, with some members in the U.S. who will be relocating to Singapore or Vietnam this year, Henry said. The current total headcount of BSX is 12 full-time employees, plus part-time engineers and interns. The firm is looking to hire several people for roles in engineering and growth functions, Henry added.
“BSX is poised to become a cornerstone of the Base ecosystem, and we are excited about their team’s potential to connect disparate liquidity sources and create an even better trading experience for all users,” Kinjal Shah, general partner at Blockchain Capital, said in a statement.
