Blockchain project Bitfinity, which is developing a Bitcoin Layer-2 network based on the Internet Computer protocol, has successfully raised a total of $7 million in funding. In an interview, Bitfinity co-founder Max Chamberlin revealed that the investors included Polychain Capital, ParaFi Capital, Warburg Serres, Dokia Capital, and Draft Ventures.
Launch Date Announced for Bitfinity
Max Chamberlin explained that the investment round was conducted in two parts: a seed round of approximately $1 million in 2021 and a growth round last June. He added that both rounds were token rounds and that the second round increased Bitfinity’s valuation to $130 million.
Chamberlin mentioned that they preferred to announce the funding now to create anticipation for Bitfinity’s mainnet launch. According to Chamberlin, Bitfinity, which is currently in beta, plans to initiate its mainnet launch by February.
Bitfinity will be presented to users as a Bitcoin scaling network built on the Internet Computer protocol. Chamberlin stated that its competitive advantage is compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, which will enable Ethereum developers to create decentralized applications within the Bitcoin ecosystem on Bitfinity:
“Bitfinity will process not only Bitcoin Ordinals and BRC-20 assets but also EVM assets. Bitfinity EVM aims to deploy EVM dApps at a speed 100 times faster than Ethereum and at a fraction of the cost.”
Bitcoin and Blockchain Space
The growth of the Bitcoin ecosystem, with the introduction of the Ordinals protocol to users last year, is seen as a significant trend for 2024. According to CoinGecko data, the protocol’s native token, ORDI, has reached a market value of $1.5 billion, while BRC-20 assets have a market value of $3.43 billion with a transaction volume exceeding $1 billion in the last 24 hours.
Chamberlin stated that Bitfinity aims to further develop decentralized finance activities within the Bitcoin ecosystem. Ben Forman, managing partner at ParaFi Capital, commented on the matter:
“As the demand to integrate Bitcoin into blockchain ecosystems increases, we believe that Bitfinity’s EVM opens up the Bitcoin ecosystem to new use cases and applications. Solidity developers can now benefit from Bitfinity’s high efficiency, low fees, and Bitcoin-specific support.”
