According to an announcement sent to Cointelegraph, the Layer-2 Blockchain network Build on bitcoin (BOB), has secured $21 million over strategic funding rounds, including $9.5 million in its most recent round.
Castle Island is among the existing investors who have increased financial commitments. New strategic investors Anchorage Group and sats Ventures are also included.
Nic Carter of Castle Island explains to Cointelegraph how they doubled down their investment.
“We also continue to believe that Bitcoin will be the bedrock of DeFi, and we think BOB will be a marquee L2.”
Dominik Harz told Cointelegraph, the BOB chief technology office, that their next milestone will be bringing the BitVM bridge to production. The bridge allows native Bitcoin to be used.BTC(BTC) can be transferred to another chain and used for DeFi.
BOB will launch BTC-staked Finality by 2025. Upgrades in the future are expected to enable BTC bridges for Solana and Ethereum smart-contract chains, as well as Sui.
“Users, institutions, apps and wallets everywhere will be able to access native BTC DeFi via BOB,” Harz said.
BOB’s Testnet went live recently with partners like Lombard Amber Digital RockawayX. The mainnet is scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter 2025.
Bridging Bitcoin with Ethereum
BOB utilizes the hybrid chain, which is an Ethereum-based ecosystem that combines Bitcoin’s stability and security with DeFi’s versatility.
BOB, a hybrid, is a Superchain that leverages the OP Stack, an Ethereum rollup. BOB, however, is also a Bitcoin network and integrates with Babylon to ensure Bitcoin finality through billions of dollars in staked BTC.
BOB has a total locked value of $212 millions as at Thursday. DeFi TVL, on the other hand, is worth $132.2million and there are 553,000 DeFi TVL users.
Related: Build on Bitcoin adds ZK-proofs in upgrade toward decentralization
Native Bitcoin DeFi on its way
Earlier, Bitcoin DeFi relied heavily on centralized institutions and wrapped Bitcoin Tokens like wBTC.wBTCTBTCTBTCHBTC) and Huobi BTC. They are called “Bitcoin” tokens were representations of real BTC, where users deposited their genuine BTC with a centralised or multisignature custodian in exchange for a tokenised version that could be used onchain.
BOB’s BitVM2 eliminates the need for multisignature custody and allows BTC users to directly interact with DeFi apps using BTC, without any additional wrapping.
BitVM2 has been co-authored by BOB founder Alexei Zamyatin. It allows for practical fraudproofs to be applied on Bitcoin. Users can enforce trust-minimized Bridging between Bitcoin L1 and the BOB.
BOB’s goal is to leverage this technology to move Bitcoin towards decentralized finance in the style of Ethereum, so that Bitcoin users can engage with DeFi, without having to lose control over their assets. The network is designed to maintain Bitcoin’s privacy while also allowing interaction with Ethereum based DeFi protocols.
Magazine: Pakistan will deploy Bitcoin reserve in DeFi for yield, says Bilal Bin Saqib
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Source: cointelegraph.com
