BOB, the Gateway to Bitcoin DeFi which combines Bitcoin’s security with Ethereum’s DeFi innovation, has announced the completion of a series of strategic funding rounds since December 2024, bringing its total raised to $21 million. BOB’s development of its hybrid chain will be accelerated by these funding rounds, placing Bitcoin at the heart of DeFi to unlock new use cases and trillions in liquidity.

Demonstrating confidence in BOB’s recent progress, many of BOB’s existing investors have ramped up their commitment in the recent $9.5M strategic round. These multi-round investors include Castle Island Ventures, which led the original $10M seed round, as well as Ledger Cathay Capital, RockawayX, Asymmetric, Hypersphere, IOSG Ventures, Bankless Ventures, Sigil/Zeeprime, CMS & Daedalus. BOB has also welcomed new strategic investments from Amber Group, Sats Ventures and Nathan McCauley the CEO of Anchorage Digital, who join the broader group of backers in this latest strategic round – bolstered by an earlier $1.6M angel investor round. 

The success and sum of this funding amount is a testament to the growing optimism and belief in BOB’s mission to unlock Bitcoin’s full potential, representing a $750 billion latent capital opportunity and a 100x growth opportunity for Bitcoin DeFi. 

Alexei Zamyatin, BOB Co-Founder and BitVM Researcher, said: “The fact that we continue to attract new partners, and so many of our original investors have doubled down, speaks volumes to the work our team has done to define Bitcoin’s central role in DeFi. With the string of recent developments and tier 1 partners choosing BOB to support their Bitcoin strategies, we’re demonstrating what’s possible with BOB’s unique Hybrid model, bringing together the strengths of Bitcoin and Ethereum to put Bitcoin at the heart of DeFi.”

As the Gateway to Bitcoin DeFi, BOB intends to be the easiest and safest place to earn with your Bitcoin. Its Hybrid Chain model combines the strengths of the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks, which means all apps, assets and transactions are secured by billions of dollars of staked BTC. Additionally, BOB will operate BTC-secured bridges to Ethereum and other chains, providing a gateway to earn yield on Bitcoin across multiple chains.

Nic Carter, Founding Partner at Castle Island Ventures, said: “We believe in the enormous potential of Bitcoin DeFi and see BitVM as the best path forward for trustless BTC deposits and withdrawals. BOB is the only Layer 2 implementing both BitVM for trustless deposits and Bitcoin finality via staked Bitcoin for Bitcoin-secured DeFi transactions. We’re excited to increase our investment and support BOB’s mission to build the gateway to Bitcoin DeFi.”

Recently, BOB launched native Bitcoin DeFi on its testnet with the support of leading institutions and DeFi protocols including Lombard, Amber Group and RockawayX. This development, powered by BOB’s BitVM bridge, will make native BTC, not wrapped representations, available to their extensive Bitcoin DeFi ecosystem once it goes live on mainnet. 

Alongside this, BOB also became the first hybrid ZK rollup, dramatically reducing cost and increasing efficiency for optimistic rollups by leveraging Zero-Knowledge technology for fraud disputes. Additionally, BOB’s integration with Fireblocks enhances institutional access to Bitcoin DeFi by combining Fireblocks’ secure wallet infrastructure with BOB’s network.

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