Quantitative trading firm Alameda Research led a $50 million investment round in travel app, Maps.me, according to a press release issued on Jan. 18.

• Alameda Research, joined by Genesis Capital and CMS Holdings, invested the sum to help boost the grow the DeFi ecosystem and boost adoption
• Maps.me is an offline mobile map that claims to have 140 million users worldwide, and is working on incorporating a wallet and a DeFi ecosystem onto its platform 
• Use cases include helping individuals pay for their travels by allowing them to earn yields of up to 8% and tackling the issue of foreign exchange fees and commissions through the use of crypto
• Sam Bankman-Fried, Alameda’s CEO and a well-known industry figure, said that the app has the potential to aid mainstream adoption “by embedding and democratizing access to yield-earning finance to millions of users via an everyday app”
• Alameda has invested in numerous startups, including trading platform 3Commas, AMM Balancer Labs and oracle network Razor Network