Blockchain-based lending firm Figure Technologies Inc. today announced the launch of Figure Markets Inc. with $60 million in new funding to build what the company called an “everything marketplace,” a single platform for investors to trade cryptocurrency, securities and alternative investments using blockchain technology.

The Series A round was led by Jump Crypto, Pantera Capital and Lightspeed Faction, with participation from Distributed Global, Ribbit Capital and CMT Digital.

Figure Technologies is best known for creating a platform for blockchain-based lending and borrowing and a distributed ledger blockchain system known as Provenance. Provenance can be used to tokenize real-world financial assets such as stocks, bonds, securities, loans, real estate and other financial vehicles into crypto assets so that they can be tracked as blockchain tokens.

Figure Markets will be based on the Provenance blockchain and operate as a cryptocurrency exchange allowing users to buy, sell and trade blockchain-native assets, such as tokenized financial assets, using decentralized custody, the company said. It also intends to use what is called multiparty computation technology, which allows wallets to be protected by multipart keys that are distributed among multiple persons so that a transaction cannot occur without multiple people signing off. This reduces potential fraud and risk when a large transaction or event needs to be confirmed.

Although ordinary exchanges deal primarily with blockchain-based cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and Ethereum, Figure Markets wants to open up the opportunity for investors to also capture markets that are not normally open such as stocks and securities. With the option to use blockchain-based, distributed transactions as well, instead of centralized settlement, the company said that it would set itself apart from exchanges such as Binance Holdings Ltd. and Coinbase Inc.

“Figure Technologies is capturing real benefits by employing blockchain in its lending and capital markets operations,” said Mike Cagney, chief executive of Figure Markets. “Our goal is to extend the benefits of blockchain to a broader range of assets — including crypto and securities. It’s ironic that the largest crypto exchanges aren’t on blockchain — we aim to change that.”

The company said that the Provenance blockchain and Figure Technologies have already proven themselves with over $30 billion in real-world assets recorded on the network since the launch of the network in 2018.

Figure Markets also said that it’s working toward a “registered security alternative” to stablecoins for its system. Stablecoins are a type of cryptocurrency that maintains a one-to-one parity in value with a traditional currency such as the U.S. dollar. Stablecoins such as USD Coin and Tether maintain a price of $1 per token, this makes it a cash equivalent digital currency and useful for exchanging with other cryptocurrencies for trade between exchanges because of its extremely low volatility.

“I believe Figure Markets is poised to be a disruptive force in the digital assets space,” said Dan Morehead, founder and managing partner of Pantera Capital. “The company’s innovative use of MPC technology addresses critical pain points in the current market structure which contributes to creating a more efficient and secure future for digital assets.”

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