Chicago DeFi Alliance welcomes 11 new members, including a decentralized lending platform, Aave, Three Arrows Capital, and ParaFi. The Alliance now focused on forming a network of partnerships between the traditional finance institutions and DeFi startups to provide solutions to liquidity sourcing problems within the decentralized finance market.

The high profile additions to the Alliance comes at a time that the DeFi space is expanding rapidly with the total locked value in DeFi apps recently crossing the $2 billion mark according to DeFi Pulse.

According to the official statement on Medium, the new members in CDA include Aave, Three Arrow Capital, Gauntlet, QCP Capital, Framework Ventures, Ledger Prime, Jon Kol, Manna Research, Autonomy, Fractal Wealth and Silicon Valley VC ParaFi.

The fast rise of CDA is evident with the addition of these top tier firms into its ranks. Aave is a fast-growing lending platform that allows the user to earn interest on their deposits and place collateral to receive decentralized loans. The DeFi platform is currently the fifth-largest DeFi app, according to DeFi Pulse, with a total value of $170 million in assets locked.

Asset liquidity plays a significant role in Aave’s business structure, and joining CDA will allow the protocol to align and learn from traditional finance liquidity providers and creating its liquidity base. Earlier in the month, BEG reported the firm is partnering with OpenLaw to offer under-collateralized loans to borrowers in a bid to boost liquidity on the platform.

The Chicago DeFi Alliance is the brainchild of Volt Capital alongside Jump Capital, TD Ameritrade, Cumberland DRW, and CMT Digital, who aim at providing solutions to help DeFi platforms in complex digital asset trading operations, liquidity sourcing and navigating regulation issues.

Since launch in April, the firm has hosted several startups with the first cohort of companies recently completing their six-week program. The first companies to join CDA include trading exchanges such as dYdX, 0x, IDEX, Opyn, Token Sets, Synthetix, and Kyber Network.

The program was a success hosting one-one and roundtable discussions between each DeFi start-up and liquidity providers/trading firms. This allows the startups to build a network connection with industry-leading players in liquidity providence.

So far, CDA has over 70 members from different areas of finance, including “trading firms, and service providers in the legal, tax, accounting, and audit areas.”

296 +