In Singapore, on April 3rd, 2024, Bitlayer Labs announced a successful seed round of $5 million, with Framework Ventures and ABCDE Capital as the lead investors. Other notable participants included StarkWare, OKX Ventures, Alliance DAO, UTXO Management, Asymmetric Capital, Kenetic Capital, Kestrel, Global Coin Research, Pivot Global, and Web3Port. The funding will support the launch of Bitlayer’s open-incentive program, Ready Player One, which invites global developers to build and enhance the protocol.
Bitlayer Labs, the developer of Bitcoin Layer 2 protocol Bitlayer, also announced the close of the seed round at an $80 million valuation. This aligns with their vision of becoming the computation layer of Bitcoin.
The round saw participation from prominent investors such as Messari CEO Ryan Selkis, Messari co-founder Dan McArdle, Asymmetric Capital founder Dan Held, Hacken CEO Dyma, Sky Mavis CEO Trung and CTO Andy, and Kyber Network founder Loi Luu. The funding was also supported by ecosystem partners, including Hacken, AWS Cloud, Ankr, Polyhedra, Babylon, Particle Network, Meson, Nubit, BitSmiley, TokenPocket, Xverse, Flash Protocol, Umoja.xyz, RunesTerminal, and more.
Bitlayer is the first Bitcoin Layer 2 network based on BitVM, offering Bitcoin-equivalent security and Turing completeness. With this funding, Bitlayer aims to lead the race in providing more use cases for Bitcoin Layer 2 solutions, making it a more scalable and interconnected ecosystem. The team also plans to expand its team in business development and engineering to support global expansion efforts.
Investment firms are increasingly optimistic about the Bitcoin ecosystem, with Bitlayer gaining recognition and capturing the industry’s attention.
Roy Learner, partner at Framework Ventures, shared his excitement for the potential of Bitlayer with BitVM, stating that it is the most practical approach to bring scalability and expressiveness to the BTC ecosystem without compromising security. Qiao Wang, co-founder of Alliance DAO, also expressed his belief in the potential of Bitlayer to enhance Bitcoin’s scalability and expressiveness, making it a more productive asset for holders.
Co-founder Charlie Hu shared his thoughts on the milestone, stating that the support from investors and builders demonstrates trust in Bitlayer and its team, and a strong backing for the Bitcoin ecosystem and the future of Bitcoin DeFi.
With the Bitcoin halving event approaching, the need for a robust Bitcoin ecosystem is more important than ever. Bitlayer’s rigorous security auditing and exacting design in preparation for the mainnet launch on April 5th position the protocol for a flourishing builder ecosystem.
To incentivize projects to deploy on the Bitlayer mainnet, the team is launching a series of ecosystem incentive programs, starting with Ready Player One. This open incentive program offers token rewards valued at over $50 million to protocols and teams that demonstrate exceptional performance on the Bitlayer mainnet. The team also commits to providing comprehensive support to all projects, including potential investment, initial liquidity support, product development resources, mentorship opportunities, and ecosystem collaboration.
Bitlayer is dedicated to becoming the computation layer for Bitcoin, offering ultra-scalability while maintaining Bitcoin’s security. For more information, users can refer to the full article. Contact for Bitlayer can be made to Sky Harris, Digital Marketing Manager, at [email protected]
