Hong Kong-based Chiron Partners launches $50M Terra fund

Terra’s native cryptocurrency, LUNA, has emerged as one of the best-performing digital assets of the past 11 months.

Hong Kong venture capital firm Chiron Partners has launched a new ecosystem fund dedicated to Terra (LUNA), opening the door to new innovations for the layer-one decentralized finance, or DeFi, protocol.

The Chiron Terra Fund I, also referred to as CTI, will deploy $50 million in capital to support innovative projects building on top of the Terra ecosystem. Projects at the intersection of decentralized finance and “metaverse-linked” nonfungible token platforms are eligible for support, the company announced Wednesday.

Built using Cosmos SDK and Tendermint, Terra is a DeFi protocol that uses fiat-pegged stablecoins to power global payment systems. The native LUNA token has been designed to absorb the short-term volatility of Terra-based stablecoins. Following its Columbus-5 upgrade in October, Terra is reportedly set to house over 160 new projects by early 2022.

Terraform Labs, the South Korean development company behind the Terra blockchain, successfully raised $150 million in funding earlier this year. Major crypto venture funds including Pantera Capital, Galaxy Digital and BlockTower Capital contributed to the raise. 

Related: The stablecoin scourge: Regulatory hesitancy may hinder adoption

Terra has emerged as one of the largest DeFi-oriented blockchains on the market, with total value locked surpassing $13 billion, according to industry data. Only Ethereum has a higher TVL.

In terms of price performance, LUNA has skyrocketed over 9,000% this year. Last month, the cryptocurrency peaked above $77.00. The cryptocurrency has a total market capitalization of $24.2 billion, placing it in the tenth spot among active projects.