Per Bitlayer, a major portion of the newly raised funds will go to speeding up the development of its Mainnet-V2.
Financial services firm Franklin Templeton has taken its commitment to the Bitcoin network a notch higher. That is, by throwing its weight behind Bitlayer Labs, a leading layer 2 solution for the flagship cryptocurrency.
According to a Tuesday announcement by Bitlayer, it recently raised $11 million in a Series A funding round after getting help from Franklin Templeton, ABCDE, and Framework Ventures as the lead investors. The round also saw participation from Stake Capital Group, WAGMI Ventures, Flow Traders, GSR Ventures, and FalconX, among others. Expectedly, this fund will play a vital role in enhancing Bitcoin’s scalability and transaction efficiency. Besides, with the kind of prominent institutional backing seen in this round of investment, the investment might turn out to be very crucial for the broader adoption of Bitcoin and its utility in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.
Franklin Templeton and Others to Accelerate Bitcoin Infrastructure Development
With the funding, Bitlayer Labs, known for pioneering Bitcoin layer 2 technology, now has a total investment of $16 million, signaling that there might be a growing institutional interest in Bitcoin infrastructure.
Layer 2 solutions like Bitlayer operate above the base blockchain, enabling faster and cheaper transactions. They achieve this by bundling such transactions and periodically recording them on the primary blockchain. This approach brings about scalability without compromising Bitcoin’s core security features, which becomes even more necessary when dealing with high transaction volumes that might cause network congestion.
Other than a focus on building Bitcoin infrastructure, Franklin Templeton’s decision to invest in Bitlayer also reflects a strategic move to explore yield-generating opportunities within the crypto market. Charlie Hu, co-founder of Bitlayer Labs, mentioned the potential effects of institutional backing, saying it paves the way for innovative solutions which, in the end, could only result in attracting more institutional investment into the Bitcoin ecosystem. Hu drew an example from Macaron, a decentralized exchange promising robust yield-making schemes built on Bitlayer, and was quoted as saying:
“Without the infrastructure of a layer 2, there’s no yield-bearing opportunity for Bitcoin sitting in your cold wallet.”
Kevin Farrelly, managing principal of Franklin Templeton Digital Assets, also had a thing to say about the just-concluded round. He stated that Franklin Templeton is highly optimistic about the prospects of Bitlayer, particularly with respect to their potential impact on Bitcoin’s ecosystem. Farrelly’s part statement reads:
“We believe that Bitlayer’s unique approach and technology has the potential to unlock new use cases and opportunities for Bitcoin.”
Development Roadmap
Per Bitlayer, a major portion of the newly raised funds will go to speeding up the development of its Mainnet-V2. The firm has identified the upgrade as critically necessary to further improve Bitcoin’s scalability and operational efficiency. Furthermore, Bitlayer will make it a point of duty to foster collaborations across the Bitcoin community. Its aim is to encourage broader adoption and integration of layer 2 solutions.
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