City Protocol aims not to be yet another treasury, but to "put product specifications on-chain".

Written by: Grok

Assisted by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

On August 26, City Protocol announced the completion of seed round and Pre-A round financing, totaling 11 million USD. The official post lists investors including Dragonfly, CMT Digital, Stratified Capital, Bitscale Capital, Adaverse, Mirana, and Jump, with the valuation undisclosed.

City Protocol is an on-chain structured product infrastructure, formerly known as Solana launchpad Cooking City. It writes strategies such as neutral hedging, statistical arbitrage, and exchange margin lending into tradable shares, with the treasury accounting at net value and redeeming at windows, with Venzo being the flagship product.

Issuer Statement Precedes On-Chain Total

On August 24, 2026, at 14:00 UTC, @cityprotocolHQ stated the total treasury reached 30 million USD; on the 26th, the Chinese press release revised it to 40 million USD. Subsequent English reports show: initial financing materials mentioned 40 million, but public statements later reverted to approximately 30 million.

The official Dune dashboard shows itemized data as follows: JPEG Fixed-Rate Credit approximately 11.3 million USD, Pro Lend PLUS approximately 840,000 USD, Delta-Neutral Prime USD approximately 510,000 USD, totaling approximately 12.68 million USD, which cannot cover any official integer. DeFiLlama currently does not have an independent protocol page. Until a reproducible full-scope query appears, both 30 million and 40 million can only be regarded as issuer statements.

The product list is based on the Venzo subscription page. As of around August 26, the page displays four strategies that are open or can be deposited:

• Delta-Neutral Prime USD (aprimeUSD, Liquid Alpha, 7-day window, displaying net APR of approximately 10.80%)
• JPEG Fixed-Rate Credit (JUSD, 30-day window, displaying net APY of approximately 11.8%)
• Affinity Quant Credit (AFUSD, officially launched on August 14, pays interest weekly, rebalances monthly, displaying net APY of approximately 8.43%)
• Pro Lend PLUS (zUSDTPL, supplies USDT to selected centralized exchange margin lending markets, displaying net APY of approximately 8%, Dune shows lifecycle/annual return of approximately 2.21%)

The official press release summarizes it as quantitative hedging, cross-exchange arbitrage, private credit. A more accurate term is: neutral strategy shares, fixed coupon packaging, exchange margin lending.

From Cooking City to Venzo: Roadmap and Financing Overlap

City Protocol was not initially positioned as a structured product protocol. Its predecessor was Cooking City on Solana (website cooking.city), a permissionless fair launchpad.

From May 29 to 30, 2025, Cooking City completed approximately 7 million USD financing, with a public statement stating Jump Crypto led the round, with participation from CMT Digital, Mirana, Bitscale Capital, and Everest Ventures Group.

At the time, it was selling an issuance mechanism: joint curve pricing, anti-front-running, Conviction Pool (the issuer must deposit funds to the contract as a commitment), with fees flowing back to developers and traders, and a commission for referrals. Contemporary reports mentioned the launchpad interfacing with Meteora liquidity, with a cumulative purchase of approximately 400 SOL tokens to "graduate" into DEX; developer shares were locked via Streamflow. The platform also initially planned for COOK points and airdrops, which were not the same circulating assets as the later $CP.

The official positioned Cooking City as a stress test. A long document dated January 5, 2026, stated: the launchpad was meant to be a meme issuance experiment, used to validate attention capture and community alignment; after the asset class became incomplete, the narrative shifted from "holding chips" to "holding rights," and the brand transitioned from Cooking City to City Protocol. The product timeline is as follows according to the official narrative:

• May 2025: Cooking City completes approximately 7 million USD financing, the entity remains as a Solana launchpad.
• July 2025: Cooking City launches its modules officially. The company later stated it ranked among the top five in launchpad rankings, with RootData project previously ranking first.
• September 2025: Launched Totem Toy City at Blockchain Week in Korea and Token2049, using NFC physical toys for "online IP to offline objects" preheating.
• October 2025: The brand upgraded from a launchpad to City Protocol, changing its external title to IP capital market infrastructure. At the same time, City ID goes live. The company later claimed validation users exceeded 50,000 within weeks; the website roadmap stated in the fourth quarter of 2025, it would verify City ID exceeding 51,000, ecological NFT holders exceeding 9,400, and the Korean community over 1,400. Partnership lists included OKX Wallet, Hong Kong Comic Con, Animoca Brands, and Base. Cooking City did not disappear but was downgraded to an issuance module under City Protocol, continuing to use the Meteora dynamic joint curve.
• Q1 2026: Attention layer shifts to Base Mini-App and Viral City, the official site lists 19,000 pieces of generated video and Cast interaction data; Base Meetup held during Hong Kong Consensus.
• Q2 2026: The official site mentions signing a high-value custom Neofinance deal and integrating 26 Base projects into the attention module, also doing Base Discovery for customer acquisition.
• From June 18 to 25, 2026: Zenith audits venzo-contracts and the $CP contract on Base, with a report released on June 29.
• From July 21 to August 31, 2026: Venzo launches Polis Points Season 1, and structured product counter opens to users.
• August 14, 2026: Affinity Quant Credit goes live.
• August 24, 2026: The official reports total treasury TVL at 30 million USD.
• August 26, 2026: Announced seed round and Pre-A round totaling 11 million USD. Dragonfly, Stratified Capital, and Adaverse appear on the new list; Jump, CMT, Bitscale, Mirana overlap with May 2025. If 7 million and 11 million are cumulative, the incremental amount for this round is approximately 4 million USD. Valuation is still undisclosed.

The business meaning of this timeline is tougher than the brand story. Funding in 2025 purchased issuance traffic and points users on Solana; funding in 2026 purchases treasury, net value, and redemption windows on EVM. City ID, Viral City, and ecological NFTs are still customer acquisition layers; Venzo is the counter that migrates the same batch of users into locked product shares.

The token CP is planned to carry two sets of contributions: the old launch and attention points, and the new treasury positions. The 11 million in August 2026 must be viewed against the background of 7 million from May 2025, otherwise, a transformative shift will be misread as a first round institutionalization of a pure asset management company.

Fee Rights Written in Contracts, Strategy Risks Written Outside

The tokenization layer turns revenue sources into distributable certificates. The treasury layer uses pre-audit contracts to handle subscriptions, limits, accounting, and asynchronous redemptions, aligned with ERC-4626, ERC-7540, and ERC-7575. The issuance operation layer synthesizes product-level net value, rebalances, rates, and lifecycles. Venzo serves as the retail entry; wallets and exchanges can embed the same product through NaaS. City Protocol aims to occupy the gateway of issuance and distribution.

Fee ceilings have been written into contracts: subscription and redemption fees do not exceed 20%, performance fees do not exceed 50%, management fees do not exceed 10%. The ceiling sets the fee space, with possible shares falling to the protocol, curators, and strategy managers.

Audit reports from security company Zenith mentioned that canceling redemption queue entries may lead to permanent locking of subsequent redemptions, and the report records have been fixed by hash. The audit covers treasury accounting, asynchronous subscriptions and redemptions, permissions, and token contracts (Base address 0x85651a8838677248774914112b3d54df28fF7ae0).

The audit cannot cover CEX order placement, margin call failures, or counterparty credit.

AccountableData, integrated on August 13, can display collateral rates, configurations, real-time TVL, and delta neutral reserve of hedging strategies.

Disclosure reduces information asymmetry but cannot reduce liquidity discounts during the 7-day or 30-day windows. Jump and CMT Digital primarily engage in trading and market-making; Venzo lists retail packages that meet market-making, statistical arbitrage, and exchange borrowing demand.

Point Airdrops and Token Economics

Polis Points Season 1 runs from July 21 to August 31. The benchmark is 1 USD for an eligible position held for 1 day counts as 1 point, multiplied by treasury 3x points, position tier, Genesis, loyalty, and referral bonuses.

The position tier takes the lower value of current eligible TVL and 7-day time-weighted metrics. The Genesis entry batch from July 21 to 26 carries a 3x point bonus and must be held continuously for 21 days to cash out the excess. Referrals are structured in a single layer: the referred adds 5%, and the referrer receives 15% of the other person’s daily Vault Factor.

The financing announcement came five days before the end of the points season. The redemption window locks funds, and the points clock locks behavior. The document does not provide a formula for converting points to CP.

CP is still pre-issue. Early allocations are 35% ecological, 20% team, 15% community, 15% investors, 5% liquidity, 10% foundation. Around August 25, 2026, documents showed signs of revision, with investor and liquidity ratios adjusted upward and ecological reserves adjusted downward.

Assets remain in users' wallets, and programs adjust positions according to public rules. Non-custodial does not equal user ownership of rule rights. Who sets the rebalancing schedule, how long delays position data sources last, who bears slippage, and whether rules can be unilaterally modified are where ownership lies.

Team Background

In public materials, there are only two names for core members of City Protocol, the two co-founders. The official site only states "a team that has incubated top crypto protocols", and the financing press release does not mention a CTO, COO, or chief risk officer. Dune dashboards have a more specific self-description: the team has experience in family office capital allocation.

Jerome Wong (RootData records in Chinese as Huang Ziquan) is the founder, a graduate of Peking University, residing in Hong Kong. His Web3 experience centers on institutional sides: from 2018 to 2025, he served as co-founder and chief business officer at Everest Ventures Group, while also participating as an investor, venture capital partner, and advisor at Animoca Brands; from 2021 to 2025, he served as co-founding partner at Adaverse and advisor to Aspen Digital. His personal investment and advisor list includes projects such as The Sandbox, Berachain, Afriex, Infinex, Moca Network, and Abstract Foundation.

Kyle Leungty is the co-founder. Messari lists both as Co-Founders; RootData also records him as a co-founder of Cooking City. On April 16, 2026, he introduced the product in a founder AMA in the Base community, positioning City Protocol as the on-chain financial infrastructure layer on Base, emphasizing two parts: the attention layer composed of Viral City and City ID, and the capital layer SDK covering treasury, exchange, lending, inflows and outflows, and KYC.

The project claims members come from Animoca Brands, The Sandbox, Dapper Labs, Memeland, as well as HSBC, MediaAsia, and LVMH.

Conclusion

The true trading rights of the strategy treasury lie in the hands of external managers like Liquid Alpha, JPEG Trading, and Affinity. That is to say, what users see as "team endorsement" covers issuance and distribution; the profits and losses during the treasury window are the responsibility of the strategy managers, not the project itself.

The entity has shifted from Solana’s launch and attention layers to EVM’s treasury, how CP equates old points with new positions remains unanswered in the documents.

City Protocol first validated traffic on Solana through the launchpad, then embedded specifications into the share contracts of Venzo. The 11 million USD is cumulative, and the shelves hold hedging strategies, arbitrage ledgers, and exchange margin demands. The bell tolls after 7 or 30 days. Before the bell rings, the total integer only accounts for the financing narrative; after the bell rings, net value redemption is what holders are accountable for.