The DeFi initiative Portal, which is dedicated to Bitcoin, has revealed the successful completion of its seed funding stage, raising $34 million. As of the time this was written, this is currently the year 2024’s second biggest investment round within the Web3 sector. An earlier funding round in September 2021 saw Portal raise $8.5 million, and just like that time, the current announcement of their capital raise emphasizes the development of a decentralized exchange (DEX). This DEX is designed to enable atomic swaps that facilitate the transfer of assets across different blockchains without the need for reliable third parties. However, despite having over two years of development and a total of $42.5 million in funds, Portal’s DEX remains in the testing phase. For further information: Bitcoin doesn’t require modifications, but… After the latest funding round was publicized, members of the Portal community displayed their dissatisfaction with the project’s sluggish progress by voicing their concerns on Portal’s Telegram channel. Certain individuals allocated funds to Portal via the consumer investment platform Republic and were curious about the timing of their anticipated financial gains. A Telegram admin stated that post-launch, investors would be granted ownership stakes. During a conversation, Chandra Duggirala, who co-founded Portal and serves as its CEO, admitted that their engineering challenges took more time to solve than they had initially anticipated. Duggirala mentioned that Portal is presently in the process of being audited, conducting tests on its platform, and establishing its network of validators. Duggirala indicated that Portal is preparing for its platform to be ready for mainnet launch by the second quarter. Both the Portal decentralized exchange (DEX) and the Portal wallet are currently marked as “coming soon” on the official Portal website.