Polychain and Variant-backed ‘neo-brokerage’ Cascade wants to open 24/7 perps trading for any asset class

Cascade, a DeFi startup that recently closed a $15 million seed round led by Polychain and Variant, began rolling out its “neo-brokerage.” The decentralized platform plans to support 24/7 perpetual trading (perps) markets for everything from real-world commodities to crypto, including tokenized versions of pre-IPO equities like OpenAI, SpaceX, and Stripe.

The protocol, reportedly under development for over two years, was unveiled at a time of accelerated growth for perps DEXs. Cumulatively, perps DEXs like Hyperliquid, Aster, Lighter and other platforms saw a record $1.2 trillion in monthly trading volume in October and a nearly equivalent amount in November.

At the same time, more crypto exchanges are looking to support varied asset classes. Onchain platforms like Ostium are offering synthetic perpetuals trading in gold and pork belly futures, while centralized venues like Kraken have enabled actual commodities markets by tapping the CME.

Then there are brokerages like Robinhood, which are looking to become omni-asset brokerages where users can bet on everything from traditional and tokenized stocks, to FX and digital currencies, fixed-income instruments and bonds, commodities, and prediction markets. 

Cascade is iterating on this model, but on its own terms, co-founder Kevin told The Block in an interview. Yes, it too is looking to provide a one-stop spot where users can own equities, trade crypto, borrow against their portfolios, and access synthetic exposure in a single account, but it also wants to feel as native as web2. 

“Everything previously in the perps space has been very web3 focused, right?” Kevin said. “For us, we want to focus on providing a CEX-level experience that can onboard regular users.”

To that extent, Cascade has worked to onboard Stripe’s Bridge to power its “complete brokerage experience,” enabling users to on- and off-board in fiat by directly connecting their bank accounts. 

“You can literally give people a Coinbase-level, CEX-level experience where they come in, sign in with Privy, Gmail, whatever, and deposit through fiat to get access to all the markets,” Kevin said. “The Bridge integration is the crucial part for us. We’ve obviously been working on the integration for a few months now and the experience is pretty seamless.”

Expanding coverage

On Tuesday, Cascade opened its vaults to build up its pre-launch deposits and begin the invite and onboarding process. The team hopes to launch its mainnet in Q1 2026. The platform will open with about 10 perpetual markets and will expand coverage over time, beginning with permissioned deployment of popular markets based on demand, similar to Ostium.

“We have different kind of oracle pricing for each market,” Kevin said. The documentation notes it will use authenticated feeds from Stork for real-time prices. Likewise, liquidations will be tied to oracle prices, with Auto-Deleveraging (ADL) mechanisms that close positions if they fall behind their margin requirements.

Crucially, Cascade also aims to support 24/7 trading across all asset classes. Kevin noted these markets are structured like “traditional perps contracts,” with no direct connection to the underlying asset. 

According to the documentation, a non-custodial matcher will handle price discovery and order matching off-chain, enabling sub-second execution speeds, while an onchain perps contract acts as an enforcer to settle trades.

Although the protocol is just now ramping up to launch, Kevin hinted at a future where Cascade becomes a unified trading and banking account, where users can take their profits to fund their everyday purchases. 

“We’re going to be like a card issuer down the line as well,” Kevin said. “You can literally just spend the funds in your trading balance, so you’re not segregating this web3 and web2 experience — you can tie everything together.”

Cascade announced its seed round in early December with support from Polychain Capital, Variant, Coinbase Ventures, Archetype, and others.

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