Cointime

Cointime

Download App
iOS & Android

Bitcoin Layer 2 Network Bitlayer Labs Raises $5M in Seed Round, Backed by Framework Ventures, ABCDE Capital and StarkWare

Bitlayer Labs, the first Bitcoin Layer 2 solution based on BitVM, announced a seed round of $5M led by Framework Ventures and ABCDE Capital, participation by StarkWare, OKX Ventures, Alliance DAO, UTXO Management, Asymmetric Capital and many more. The announcement comes as Bitlayer prepares the launch of its open-incentive program Ready Player One, inviting developers worldwide to augment, enhance, and build on the protocol.

March 27th, 2024 — Bitlayer Labs, the developer of Bitcoin Layer 2 protocol Bitlayer, announced today the close of a $5 million seed funding round at an $80 million valuation, driving a vision to become the computation layer of Bitcoin.

Investors & Ecosystem Partners

Blockchain-based venture firms Framework Ventures and ABCDE Capital led the round, with participation from StarkWare, OKX Ventures, Alliance DAO, UTXO Management, Asymmetric Capital, Kenetic Capital, Kestrel, Global Coin Research, Pivot Global, Web3Port, Gate Labs, Mindfulness Capital, Quotient Ventures, Cogitent Ventures, NxGen Capital, C6E Capital, PAKA, Comma3 Ventrues, Kronos Ventures, Pragma Ventures, Faculty Group, Rising Capital, Samara Group, DuckDAO, CSP DAO, and DCI.

Prominent angel investors including Messari CEO Ryan Selkis, Messari co-founder Dan McArdle, Asymmetric Capital Bitcoin educator Dan Held, Hacken CEO Dyma, Sky Mavis CEO Trung and CTO Andy, Kyber Network founder Loi Luu, Coin98 founder Thanh Le, and Blockchain Founders Fund partner Tobias joined in capitalizing the protocol.

Bitlayer’s seed round was delivered soaring value-add support from ecosystem partners including Hacken, AWS Cloud, Ankr, Polyhedra, Babylon, Particle Network, Meson, Nubit, BitSmiley, TokenPocket, Xverse, Flash Protocol, Umoja.xyz, RunesTerminal, Lamina, NFTGO, Giants Planet, Tria, Tonka Finance, Anome, BitLen, Ordimint, and Caliber.

The Bitlayer Network

Bitlayer is the first Bitcoin Layer 2 network based on BitVM, offering Bitcoin-equivalent security and Turing-completeness. The protocol aims to build a more scalable and interconnected Bitcoin ecosystem.

The securing of new capital pushes Bitlayer’s lead in paving the way for more Bitcoin Layer 2 use cases, a race that will propel Bitcoin to prevail over other blockchains in size, scalability, and security. The fund will also enable Bitlayer to grow its team by hiring across business development and engineering faculties to support global expansion efforts.

Investment firms are increasingly optimistic about the Bitcoin ecosystem as Bitlayer is rapidly gaining prominence, capturing the industry’s attention.

Investor Remarks

Roy Learner, partner at Framework Ventures, spoke on the augmentation of Bitlayer with BitVM:

“We are excited to back Bitlayer as they launch the first Bitcoin Layer 2 network based on BitVM. Looking at the trade-off space, BitVM struck us as the most practical approach to bring scalability and expressiveness into the BTC ecosystem without sacrificing security. With over $1T of global wealth looking to productively utilize their BTC, Bitlayer opens up the design space to introduce novel DeFi use cases and applications. Led by a team of OGs, we’ve been impressed by Kevin and Charlie’s blend of deep technical background and rich crypto experience and are excited to partner with them as they deliver on their vision of making Bitcoin a more productive asset.”

Qiao Wang, co-founder of Alliance DAO, emphasized the future of Bitlayer and Bitcoin L2s in the emerging era:

“I spent the vast majority of my intellectual, social, and financial capital in the Ethereum ecosystem in the last decade, but deep down I’ve always been a Bitcoiner. The possibility to enhance Bitcoin’s expressiveness and scalability via L2s such as Bitlayer is the most exciting moment in the history of Bitcoin. That is because there’s over $1T of wealth stored on Bitcoin, and the holders would want to do something productive with it. Greater expressiveness and scalability enable this. Bitlayer is one of the most experienced, passionate, and technically capable teams to tackle this problem.”

ABCDE Capital co-founder and managing partner BMAN Lee expressed his convictions on Bitlayer and the prospects of the Bitcoin L2 landscape:

“Fisher’s equation, MV = PQ, stands steadfast in our crypto zeitgeist: the money in circulation (M), its velocity (V), the price of goods (P), and the quantity of assets (Q). Up until now, M has been constant, and V has been very low, limiting the scale of asset quantities and asset prices on the right side of the equation. The requisite for Bitcoin L2s is then made clear, to accelerate the velocity of Bitcoin. Bitlayer’s mission is to become Bitcoin’s computing layer, security-equivalent with Layer 1 and a paragon of efficiency, security, and scalability. Founders Charlie Hu and Kevin He, with their seasoned expertise, unwavering passion, and formidable technical prowess are thrust to the forefront of the Bitcoin L2 ecosystem. The founders’ commitment to overcoming the challenge of Bitcoin scalability heralds a new era of possibility.”

In the midst of building Bitlayer, co-founder Charlie Hu shared his thoughts on the protocol’s milestone:

“This support signifies investors’ and builders’ trust in Bitlayer and the team, and demonstrates a robust backing for the Bitcoin ecosystem and the future of Bitcoin DeFi at large.”

Bitlayer ventures into the future of Bitcoin with newly supplied capital, anticipating a rush of development activity and investor interest in the Bitcoin Layer 2 space.

“Bitlayer is dedicated to bringing super scalability into the Bitcoin ecosystem, with hundreds of millions of potential users as an addressable market,” said Kevin He, co-founder of Bitlayer. “We’ve created the best, easiest-to-use scalability product in order to give users better fee rates and faster actions, all based on Bitcoin’s security foundation.”

With the approach of the Bitcoin halving event, the need for a robust Bitcoin ecosystem becomes more important than ever. Bitlayer’s exacting design and rigorous security auditing in preparation for public mainnet launch primes the protocol for a flourishing builder ecosystem. Mainnet launches on April 5th, with more milestones arriving soon on the project’s development pipeline.

About Bitlayer

Bitlayer is the first Bitcoin Layer 2 network based on BitVM, offering Bitcoin-equivalent security and Turing-completeness. Bitlayer is committed to becoming the computation layer for Bitcoin. It introduces ultra-scalability and inherits Bitcoin’s L1 security, providing users with high throughput and a low-cost transaction experience.

Comments

All Comments

Recommended for you

  • American Bitcoin's Bitcoin reserves have increased by approximately 623 BTC in the past 7 days, bringing its current holdings to 4941 BTC.

    Emmett Gallic, a blockchain analyst who previously disclosed and analyzed the "1011 insider whale," posted on the X platform revealing updated data on the Bitcoin reserves of American Bitcoin, a crypto mining company supported by the Trump family. In the past seven days, they increased their holdings by about 623 BTC, of which approximately 80 BTC came from mining income and 542 BTC from strategic acquisitions in the open market. Currently, their total Bitcoin holdings have risen to 4,941 BTC, with a current market value of about 450 million USD.

  • The US spot Ethereum ETF saw a net outflow of $19.4 million yesterday.

    according to TraderT monitoring, the US spot Ethereum ETF had a net outflow of 19.4 million USD yesterday.

  • Listed companies, governments, ETFs, and exchanges collectively hold 5.94 million Bitcoins, representing 29.8% of the circulating supply.

    Glassnode analyzed the holdings of major types of Bitcoin holders as follows: Listed companies: about 1.07 million bitcoins, government agencies: about 620,000 bitcoins, US spot ETFs: about 1.31 million bitcoins, exchanges: about 2.94 million bitcoins. These institutions collectively hold about 5.94 million bitcoins, accounting for approximately 29.8% of the circulating supply, highlighting the trend of liquidity increasingly concentrating in institutions and custodians.

  • The Bank of Japan is reportedly planning further interest rate hikes; some officials believe the neutral interest rate will be higher than 1%.

    according to insiders, Bank of Japan officials believe that before the current rate hike cycle ends, interest rates are likely to rise above 0.75%, indicating that there may be more rate hikes after next week's increase. These insiders said that officials believe that even if rates rise to 0.75%, the Bank of Japan has not yet reached the neutral interest rate level. Some officials already consider 1% to still be below the neutral interest rate level. Insiders stated that even if the Bank of Japan updates its neutral rate estimates based on the latest data, it currently does not believe that this range will significantly narrow. Currently, the Bank of Japan's estimate for the nominal neutral interest rate range is about 1% to 2.5%. Insiders said that Bank of Japan officials also believe there may be errors in the upper and lower limits of this range itself. (Golden Ten)

  • OKX: Platform users can earn up to 4.10% annualized return by holding USDG.

    According to the official announcement, from 00:00 on December 11, 2025 to 00:00 on January 11, 2026 (UTC+8), users holding USDG in their OKX funding, trading, and lending accounts can automatically earn an annualized yield of up to 4.10% provided by the OKX platform, with the ability to withdraw or use it at any time, allowing both trading and wealth management simultaneously. Users can check their earnings anytime through the OKX APP (version 6.136.10 and above) - Assets - by clicking on USDG. Moving forward, the platform will continue to expand the application of USDG in more trading and wealth management scenarios.

  • The Federal Reserve will begin its Reserve Management Purchase (RMP) program today, purchasing $40 billion in Treasury bonds per month.

     according to the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee's decision on December 10, the Federal Reserve will start implementing the Reserve Management Purchase (RMP) program from December 12, purchasing a total of $40 billion in short-term Treasury securities in the secondary market.

  • Bitcoin treasury company Strategy's daily transaction volume has now surpassed that of payment giant Visa.

    according to market sources: the daily trading volume of Bitcoin treasury company Strategy (MSTR) has now surpassed the payment giant Visa.

  • The US spot Bitcoin ETF saw a net outflow of $78.35 million yesterday.

    according to Trader T's monitoring, the US spot Bitcoin ETF had a net outflow of $78.35 million yesterday.

  • JPMorgan Chase issues Galaxy short-term bonds on Solana network

     JPMorgan arranged and created, distributed, and settled a short-term bond on the Solana blockchain for Galaxy Digital Holdings LP, as part of efforts to enhance financial market efficiency using underlying cryptocurrency technology.

  • HSBC expects the Federal Reserve to refrain from cutting interest rates for the next two years.

    HSBC Securities predicts the Federal Reserve will maintain interest rates stable at the 3.5%-3.75% range set on Wednesday for the next two years. Previously, Federal Reserve policymakers lowered rates by 25 basis points with a split vote. The institution's U.S. economist Ryan Wang pointed out in a report on December 10 that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was "open to the question of whether and when to further cut rates at next year's FOMC press conference." "We believe the FOMC will keep the federal funds rate target range unchanged at 3.50%-3.75% throughout 2026 and 2027, but as the economy evolves, as in the past, it is always necessary to pay close attention to the significant two-way risks facing this outlook."

Daily Must-Read

Popular Activities

RaveDAO at Terra Solis by Tomorrowland: A Female-Led Techno Night Where Web3 Culture Converges

RaveDAO at Terra Solis by Tomorrowland: A Female-Led Techno Night Where Web3 Culture Converges

April 30 - April 30
Dubai

Popular Tags

Cointime
News
Contents
RSS
Company