Van Eck Heir Launches $12M VC-Backed USD Stablecoin

Nick van Eck, son of investment guru Jan van Eck, is spearheading Agora, a new stablecoin project backed by $12 million in funding.

Following the successful completion of a funding round of $12 million, Nick van Eck, the son of investment management virtuoso Jan van Eck, is planning to introduce a new stablecoin that is backed by the United States dollar.

Van Eck Joins Forces To Establish Agora

In October, crypto veterans Drake Evans and Joe McGrady joined forces with van Eck to establish Agora. According to a story from Bloomberg on April 2, Agora would debut the Agora digital dollar with the ticker symbol AUSD. Nick van Eck will take over as Chief Executive Officer.

Although the AUSD would be entirely backed by cash, U.S. Treasury bills, and overnight repo agreements, a fund for Agora’s reserves will be managed by VanEck, an asset management firm with a valuation of $90 billion, where Jan van Eck serves as the principal executive officer.

According to Kyle DaCrzu, “There is a need to have transparent and trustworthy institutions managing the assets of these digital dollars and the digital dollars themselves.”

Dragonfly, a venture capital firm that specializes in digital assets, was the one that led the $12 million seed funding round. Additional investments came from Robot Ventures, Wintermute, Breed, and General Catalyst, the same company with which Van Eck previously worked as a partner.

Evans had previously held the position of head of lending at the decentralized finance company Frax Finance, and Joe McGrady had previously held the position of director of operations at the digital asset management platform Galaxy Digital.

However, the stablecoin issuer for Agora is situated in the British Virgin Islands, while the parent corporation of Agora is incorporated in Delaware.

As of now, it will only service a few markets that are located outside of the United States.” We are going to focus primarily on customers outside of the United States until there is federal legislation for stablecoins in the United States,” van Eck said in an interview with Bloomberg for the publication.

Southeast Asia and Argentina are likely to reap the most benefits from the introduction of a digital dollar. Reports shows that Tether (USDT) and Circle (USDC) are the two most dominant stablecoins globally, with respective market capitalizations of $104.3 billion and $32.5 billion, respectively.

Additionally, Agora is entering this competitive industry. The six largest stablecoins hold market capitalizations of more than $500 million. Van Eck, on the other hand, believes that there is still a place for a newcomer.

Agora’s primary focus will be the establishment of robust collaborations with all of the industry’s participants, including cryptocurrency exchanges and custodians, as well as decentralized applications and trading organizations, will be the primary focus of Agora.

According to Van Eck, holders of the AUSD would not get revenue like the TerraClassicUSD (USTC) did before the ultimate collapse of the cryptocurrency in May 2022.