HaloDAO, a decentralized marketplace for stablecoins, has raised $3.5 million in seed investments, setting the stage for the creation of an all-in-one DeFi ecosystem for swapping, borrowing and lending.

Founded by former employees of ConsenSys, HaloDAO aims to develop liquid markets for stablecoins beyond the U.S. dollar. As part of its initial rollout, HaloDAO will focus on asset-based stablecoins for Asian fiat currencies.

“Asia has one of the most tech-savvy and blockchain-aware populations in the world and will likely reach mass adoption of digital assets before other regions,” Julian Gropp, portfolio manager at Parataxis Capital, said, adding:

“We believe that HaloDAO is building a scalable platform that will enable end-users in this and other regions to significantly benefit from this nascent technology.”

Darius Sit, co-founder and CIO of QCP Capital, described HaloDAO's platform as facilitating the "convergence of traditional and decentralized finance."

Once it becomes operational, HaloDAO will support three stablecoins for the Asia-Pacific region, including the Hong Kong dollar-pegged TrueHKD, the Singapore dollar-pegged XSGD and the Indonesian Rupiah-pegged BIDR.

The DeFi market took a beating earlier this week as Bitcoin (BTC) and the broader cryptocurrency market underwent one of the largest corrections in recent memory. Beyond immediate price action, the market for decentralized finance continues to grow.

The DeFi boom was on display earlier this week after Polygon, a leading platform for Ethereum scaling, attracted 75,000 new users in just seven days. Meanwhile, Ernst & Young announced it was investing $100 million to expand its blockchain product suite and launch a new DeFi contract simulator.