Layer-2 blockchain community Build on Bitcoin (BOB) has raised $21 million in strategic funding rounds since December 2024, with $9.5 million secured in its newest spherical, in line with a information launch despatched to Cointelegraph.
Many current buyers have elevated their monetary commitments within the newest $9.5 million strategic spherical, together with Castle Island, together with new strategic buyers Anchorage, Amber Group and sats Ventures.
Nic Carter, founding associate of Castle Island, advised Cointelegraph why they’ve determined to double down on their funding:
“We additionally proceed to consider that Bitcoin would be the bedrock of DeFi, and we predict BOB will likely be a marquee L2.”
Dominik Harz, chief know-how officer at BOB, advised Cointelegraph the corporate’s subsequent main milestone is launching the BitVM bridge into manufacturing. The bridge will allow native Bitcoin (BTC) for use in DeFi on BOB and facilitate BTC transfers to different chains.
BOB plans to launch BTC-staked finality by the tip of 2025, with future upgrades enabling BTC-secured bridges to Solana, Ethereum, Sui and different smart-contract chains.
“Users, establishments, apps and wallets in every single place will be capable of entry native BTC DeFi by way of BOB,” Harz mentioned.
BOB’s testnet not too long ago went reside with help from companions together with Lombard, Amber Digital and RockawayX. A mainnet launch is deliberate for the fourth quarter of 2025.
Bridging Bitcoin and Ethereum
BOB makes use of the hybrid chain mannequin, which mixes the safety and stability of Bitcoin with the flexibility of Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem.
BOB is a hybrid as a result of it’s concurrently a member of the Superchain, leveraging the OP Stack as an Ethereum rollup, and likewise a Bitcoin-secured community, integrating with Babylon for Bitcoin finality by way of billions of {dollars} of staked BTC.
As of Thursday, BOB’s complete worth locked is $212 million, whereas DeFi TVL is $132.2 million, with 553,000 customers.
Related: Build on Bitcoin provides ZK-proofs in improve towards decentralization
Native Bitcoin DeFi is on the best way
Previously, Bitcoin DeFi largely relied on centralized establishments or wrapped Bitcoin tokens comparable to wBTC (wBTC), tBTC (TBTC) and Huobi BTC (HBTC). These so-called “Bitcoin” tokens have been representations of actual BTC, the place customers deposited their real BTC with a centralised or multisignature custodian in trade for a tokenised model that could possibly be used onchain.
While all BTC bridges have traditionally relied on multisignature custody, BOB’s BitVM2 permits customers to work together with DeFi purposes utilizing their native BTC immediately, with no custody or wrapping required.
BitVM2 is the newest BitVM design, co-authored by BOB co-founder Alexei Zamyatin. It permits sensible fraud proofs on Bitcoin, which permit customers to implement trust-minimized bridging between the Bitcoin L1 and BOB.
By leveraging this know-how, BOB goals to carry Bitcoin nearer to Ethereum-style decentralized finance, permitting Bitcoin customers to interact in DeFi with out shedding management of their belongings. The community goals to protect Bitcoin’s safety whereas enabling interplay with Ethereum-based DeFi protocols.
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