Decentralized finance protocol Acala announced Monday that they have raised 8.5 million DOT (worth $451.8 million at time of publication) from over 53,000 participants. The protocol is also set to win the first parachain auction on Polkadot.
Unlike typical crowdfunding rounds, Acala's financing mechanism is a crowdloan, which means it will eventually need to pay back the "crypto debt" it has solicited from investors.