BUSINESS

Decentralized finance (DeFi) firms IntoTheBlock and Trident Digital have merged to form Sentora, joining forces to bring institutional investors onchain.

The new company, helmed by Anthony DeMartino, co-founder of Trident and former head of risk strategies at Coinbase (COIN), is also on track to close a $25 million founding round with New Form Capital leading the investment. Ripple, Tribe Capital, UDHC, Joint Effects also participated in the fundraising round, with further backing from strategic ecosystem investors including Curved Ventures, Flare and Bankai Ventures. While most investors have already closed the investment, two firms will close the process by June, the company told CoinDesk.

The merger comes at a time when DeFi is maturing from its “wild west” beginnings into a blockchain-based financial economy with offerings increasingly catered towards sophisticated investors.

It also underscores the ongoing trend of consolidation within the crypto industry. There were 88 mergers and acquisitions in the first four months of 2025, according to Architect Partners, putting this year on track to surpass the record years of 2022 and 2024.

Sentora combines IntoTheBlock’s track record in DeFi analytics—spanning over $3 billion in institutional deployments—with Trident’s experience structuring liquidity programs and financial products.

The platform aims to provide a one-stop shop for institutional investors, offering yield strategies, compliance, risk management and access to structured products all under one hood.

“The vision is to build all the core primitives that are needed for any institution whether it’s a crypto institution, DAO foundation, traditional finance investor or individual family office, to interact with DeFi in a way that feels intelligent, that feels safe, that feels secure,” Jesus Rodriguez, co-founder of IntoTheBlock and now CTO of Sentora, said in an interview with CoinDesk.

A key roadblock that has hindered asset managers entering DeFi at scale is that the space is getting increasingly complex and fragmented across new chains and protocols, DeMartino explained.

“It shouldn’t be this hard,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to learn about a new chain and learn about a whole bunch of different protocols and understand bridging and different wallets every time you want to go to a new chain.”

What can help bridge this gap and attract even traditional finance firms on-chain, according to DeMartino, is to abstract away from interacting with individual protocols with a single platform that handles all the risk management and liquidity, while keeping transparency about the underlying plumbing.

“DeFi rails are the future of finance, but it’s still a very small market,” he said. DefiLlama data shows that there are less than $130 billion of assets on DeFi protocols, dwarfed by the the multiple trillions of assets under management at the likes of BlackRock and Fidelity Investments.

“We’re building the rails for the next 130 trillion of assets to come onchain,” he said.

Read more: Beyond Incentives: How to Build Durable DeFi

NATIX, a decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) focused on mapping data on Solana, shared Tuesday that it is teaming up with taxi service Grab to provide more accurate mapping technologies.

Grab, which is known for its taxi services in southeast Asia but also crowdsources mapping data for its technological mapping arm, will be using its collaboration with NATIX to expand its footprint into the U.S. and Europe.

The partnership consists of the NATIX team using Grab’s hardware and software technologies for mapmaking. “We take care of the data collection side, and we essentially monetize this together,” said Alireza Ghods, the co-founder of NATIX to CoinDesk in an interview. “They’re buying the data that we generate to build their pipeline for the U.S. and for Europe. And on the other side, they’re giving us both their hardware technology as well as the AI technology that basically analyzes the images to build maps and map services like navigation.”

“We’re starting in the markets of the EU and US, where [Grab] is not present. So this is us combined with Grab, going for global expansion,” Ghods added.

DePIN is a blockchain-based system that crowdsources real-world infrastructure, like data collection, and verifies them through decentralized technologies. DePIN projects often appear in the Solana ecosystem thanks to the blockchain’s fast transaction speeds and low transaction costs.

NATIX is a project within Solana’s DePIN ecosystem that enables users to contribute street data and mapping visuals via smartphones. The crowdsourced data is then used to build decentralized maps, which can be leveraged by AI models, especially for autonomous driving and smart city applications. Users are also rewarded NATIX’s native token, $NATIX, for their contributions as a way to incentivize them to participate in the network.

“The reason that we actually did the collaboration is due to the power of DePIN combined with a very well established enterprise grade technology, ” said Ghods. “I think it’s one of the few sectors in crypto that really, really makes sense.”

Read more: DePIN 2.0: What the Next Generation of DePINs Is Doing Differently

Figment, a major player in blockchain staking services, is actively looking to buy companies in a spree of crypto industry consolidation sparked by renewed optimism over U.S. regulatory clarity.

The Toronto-based firm is targeting acquisitions between $100 million and $200 million, with a strong regional presence or within blockchain ecosystems, such as Cosmos and Solana, CEO Lorien Gabel told Bloomberg. He said the firm already has term sheets out for some deals, the report added.

Figment helps institutions earn yield by staking, whereby tokens are locked to help secure blockchain networks and validate transactions supported by networks. The company currently manages around $15 billion in staked assets and employs about 150 people, Gabel said.

The flurry of crypto deals, which include Kraken’s $1.5 billion purchase of NinjaTrader and Ripple’s $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road, comes as the Trump administration brought on a more crypto-friendly regulatory environment. That environment saw the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission drop cases against various crypto firms, with crypto ally Paul Atkins recently taking over the commission.

Despite the acquisition strategy, Figment isn’t seeking additional funding and has ruled out a sale. Gabel, who co-founded the firm and has launched three prior startups, said he’s committed to building Figment for the long term. “I’d rather go to zero,” he said.

The company has raised $165 million to date, according to data from TheTie. Its latest Series C funding round was led by Thoma Bravo and saw participation from giants including Morgan Stanley, StarkWave, and Franklin Templeton India.

Read More: Kraken to Buy NinjaTrader for $1.5B to Enter U.S. Crypto Futures Market