Key facts
- Solana DeFi firms Orca and Loopscale have merged to form a new entity named Formation.
- Formation will be headquartered in New York.
- Luke Truitt, co-founder of Loopscale, will serve as CEO of Formation.
- Formation aims to provide integrated trading, credit, and vault services for issuers.
- The new company plans to operate a tokenized securities venue under an SEC innovation exemption.
- Formation targets financing for AI, energy, robotics, and defense assets.
Solana-based decentralized exchange Orca and lending protocol Loopscale have merged to create a new company called Formation, the two firms announced Wednesday. The new entity, headquartered in New York, aims to offer a comprehensive suite of decentralized financial services, integrating trading, credit, and vault functionalities into a single platform.
Formation will be led by Loopscale co-founder Luke Truitt as CEO, with Mary Gooneratne as chief operating officer and Orca's Christopher Montagano as chief strategy and legal officer. Financial terms of the merger were not disclosed.
The combined entity plans to leverage Orca's trading infrastructure and Loopscale's credit order book and vaults to enable issuers to launch assets with both trading and credit capabilities from inception. Orca has processed over $550 billion in trading volume since its launch in 2021, while Loopscale reports facilitating over $2 billion in loans and holding more than $150 million in deposits.
Formation is specifically targeting financing for companies in the AI, energy, robotics, and defense sectors, areas where it believes traditional markets are not adequately serving financing needs. Truitt stated that the merger reflects a belief that capital markets must evolve alongside the industries they support.
The company intends to operate a tokenized securities venue under the SEC's five-year Innovation Exemption, which allows certain tokenized securities platforms to trade tokenized U.S.-listed stocks without full exchange registration. Formation also plans to introduce new tools for issuers and capital allocation strategies over the next 12 months. The ORCA token will serve as the token for Formation, and existing Loopscale points will be converted later this year.