Eden Network Raises $17.4M to Shield Ethereum Users From Malicious Miners

Priority transaction network Eden has raised $17.4 million in a seed funding round led by Multicoin Capital.

Participation also came from firms Jump Capital, Alameda Research, Wintermute, GSR and Defiance Capital. Angel investors Joshua Lim, head of derivatives at Genesis Capital, and Andre Cronje, founder of Yearn Finance also participated.

The new capital will go toward supporting developers, miners and user adoption of the new network, according to a press release on Wednesday.

Eden seeks to shield Ethereum traders from the menace of miner extractable value (MEV). MEV is the measure of profits miners can make by capriciously reordering transactions within blocks they produce.

Read more: Why Ethereum’s Miner Extractable Value Problem Is Way Worse Than You Think

Backed by some of the largest Ethereum mining pools, Eden creates new incentives for block producers and redistributes MEV in a more equitable way, the company said.

“Eden Network represents a fairer, more democratic and market-driven approach to fixing MEV than anything that has come before it,” said Tushar Jain, managing partner at Multicoin Capital, adding:

Jain went on to say that Eden creates clear and transparent rules with incentives for miners and traders to follow. Its process “creates a far more transparent system for transaction ordering,” he said.

Since Ethereum’s London hard fork went live on Aug. 5, Eden represents 50% of the total hash power on the Ethereum network, meaning Eden blocks are being produced more than anywhere else, according to the release.

“For institutional [decentralized finance] participants, the market for MEV is becoming as critical as spot liquidity and depth,” said Joshua Lim, head of derivatives at Genesis Trading. “Eden Network offers a transparent MEV tokenization mechanism that protects large liquidity takers.” Genesis Trading is owned by CoinDesk parent Digital Currency Group.