Cardano accelerator program Genius X ISPO nets $105 million in ADA

Published at: May 20, 2022

Cardano-based accelerator program Genius X has seen more than $105 million worth of ADA delegated to its initial stake pool offering (ISPO).

This comes after the firm’s decentralized automated market maker and liquidity management protocol Genius Yield completed its ISPO on May 10, with over 14,500 delegators staking 270 million Cardano (ADA) across four official stake pools, making it one of the biggest ISPOs within the Cardano ecosystem.

Genius Yield is a Cardano-based decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol that features a decentralized exchange with an order book. It integrates a liquidity provision model, which aims to mitigate market risk and eliminate impermanent loss.

Genius X will serve as the accelerator program arm of the company, providing early-stage blockchain startups with relevant tools, consulting services and investment to build blockchain-based companies within the ecosystem.

The Genius X ISPO has garnered significant support in the week following the ISPO launch on May 15. More than 205 million ADA ($105 million) has been delegated to four staking pools by nearly 14,000 participants.

Genius X investors will receive GENSX for delegated ADA staked in the four staking pools of the accelerator’s ISPO — GENS1, GENS2, GENS3 and GENSX.

Dr. Sothy Kol-Men, the managing partner of Genius, believes the high interest in the ISPO is heartening given the last fortnight of events in the cryptocurrency space, dominated by the collapse of algorithmic stablecoin and DeFi platform Terra:

"This is an endorsement from our community and investors that we are on the right path, building and releasing the necessary foundation to accelerate growth, support ambitious projects planning to leverage Cardano's unique smart contracting architecture, and indeed, further promote adoption."

An ISPO is the Cardano ecosystem’s crowdfunding equivalent of an initial coin offering (ICO). ADA stakers delegate tokens to pools and exchange staking rewards for a project’s native token. An ISPO is non-custodial, meaning investors can reclaim their delegated ADA at any stage.

The fundraising method has gained popularity given that investors continue to control their delegated funds to a given project, giving added peace of mind. The method contrasts a conventional ICO, in which investors part ways with a specific token to have a stake in a project or company.