Nick van Eck, son of investment management maestro Jan van Eck, is set to launch a new stablecoin backed by the US dollar, after closing a $12 million funding round.
According to an April 2 Bloomberg report, cryptocurrency veterans Drake Evans and Joe McGrady have teamed up with van Eck to build Agora, which will launch the Agora digital dollar with the AUSD tag in October . Nick van Eck will serve as CEO.
The AUSD will be fully backed by cash, U.S. Treasury bills and overnight repo agreements, while the $90 billion asset management firm VanEck, whose CEO is Jan van Eck, will manage Agora's reserve fund.
"Transparent and trustworthy institutions are needed to manage the assets of these digital dollars," said VanEck's director of digital assets, Kyle DaCrzu.
The $12 million initial funding round was led by digital asset firm Dragonfly, with additional investment coming from Robot Ventures, Wintermute, Breed and General Catalyst, where van Eck previously worked as a partner.
Evans was previously chief credit officer at decentralized finance company Frax Finance, and Joe McGrady was chief operating officer at digital asset management firm Galaxy Digital.
