BOB raises $21m to accelerate hybrid Bitcoin DeFi platform development

BOB, a Bitcoin DeFi project, has raised $21m through multiple funding rounds to advance its hybrid blockchain that combines Bitcoin’s security with Ethereum’s DeFi capabilities.

In a press release shared with crypto.news, BOB, a self-proclaimed “Gateway to Bitcoin DeFi“, announced that it has raised a total of $21 million through multiple strategic funding rounds since December last year, with the latest $9.5 million round significantly increasing support from existing investors and attracting new backers.

Leading the original $10 million seed round, Castle Island Ventures doubled down on its investment alongside Ledger, RockawayX, Asymmetric, IOSG Ventures, UTXO Management, Daedalus, CMS, Bankless Ventures, Hypersphere, Alliance, and Sigil/Zeeprime.

New strategic investors joining in this recent round include Anchorage, Amber Group, and Sats Ventures. Additionally, BOB raised $1.6 million earlier through an angel investor round.

The funds will be used to accelerate development of BOB’s hybrid blockchain, which aims to combine Bitcoin’s security with Ethereum’s DeFi innovation. This effort seeks to unlock new use cases and tap into what BOB sees as a $750 billion latent capital opportunity in Bitcoin DeFi, potentially driving 100x growth in the sector.

BOB’s hybrid chain model leverages billions of dollars in staked Bitcoin to secure all applications, assets, and transactions within its ecosystem. The platform allows users to interact with native BTC directly, eliminating the need for wrapped tokens or custodians.

The project’s recent milestones include launching a native Bitcoin DeFi testnet supported by leading institutions like Lombard, Amber Digital, and RockawayX. When it launches on mainnet, this will make native BTC, not its wrapped representations, available to their extensive Bitcoin DeFi ecosystem.

BOB also became the first hybrid zk-rollup, combining the security and finality of optimistic rollups with the efficiency of zero-knowledge proofs to reduce costs and speed up transactions.

Finally, BOB has recently integrated with Fireblocks to improve institutional access by leveraging Fireblocks’ secure wallet technology alongside BOB’s network.