Authors: flowie, ChainCatcher

Editors: Marco, ChainCatcher

After BOB completed a $30 million financing at the end of March, Western-backed Bitcoin Layer2 projects have once again secured financing one after another.

On May 7th, Botanix Labs announced a total of $11.5 million in financing, with participation from Polychain Capital, Placeholder Capital, Valor Equity Partners, ABCDE, and the creator of the BRC-20 token standard, Domo.

ZKM, incubated by Ethereum Layer2 Metis co-founded by Vitalik, although the team is not entirely of Western background, has still attracted considerable attention after announcing the development of Bitcoin Layer2 and completing a $5 million Pre-A round of financing led by OKX Ventures, with participation from Amber Group, Metis Foundation, Crypto.com, and others.

In April, Mezo, a Bitcoin Layer2 developed by the veteran crypto developer Thesis, also announced a $21 million financing round led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Multicoin Capital, Hack VC, and others.

According to incomplete statistics from ChainCatcher, in the past two months, Western-backed Bitcoin Layer2 projects have secured nearly $70 million. Among them, well-known investment institutions such as Polychain Capital, Pantera Capital, Multicoin Capital, and Hack VC have participated.

Bitcoin Layer2 has always been one of the core narratives of this bull market, but with the underperformance of the leading token MERL from Merlin Chain after its launch, the community has begun to widely question the Bitcoin Layer2 track, especially the Bitcoin Layer2 projects with Eastern team backgrounds.

At this time, the successive financing of Western-backed Bitcoin Layer2 projects will change the landscape of Bitcoin Layer2. How are the recent Western-backed Bitcoin Layer2 projects that have received financing progressing? What opportunities do ordinary investors have to participate? ChainCatcher has made a brief summary.

Botanix Labs /Spiderchain

Botanix Labs was founded in 2022 and is the developer of the Bitcoin Layer2 Spiderchain. Spiderchain claims to be a fully decentralized EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) equivalent Bitcoin Layer2, aiming to combine the security of Bitcoin with the flexibility of EVM.

In terms of security, Spiderchain's most distinctive feature is its multi-signature wallet mechanism, which creates a dynamic, constantly changing, decentralized multi-signature wallet, allowing users to avoid single-point risks and malicious attacks from project super permissions when crossing assets between the Bitcoin layer1 network and layer2 network.

In terms of team background, Botanix Labs founder Willem Schroé completed a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering and a master's degree in cryptography at KU Leuven, the top-ranked university in Belgium, and has conducted research on cryptographic aspects of authentication.

In a recent public interview, Willem Schroé mentioned that after completing his studies, he worked in the chemical industry for six years and then moved to work in Saudi Arabia for two years. In the Middle East, he realized the importance of cryptocurrency after seeing the malignant inflation in Lebanon. He then applied to Harvard Business School to formally study cryptography.

At Harvard, his main research direction also included "forward security," and he wrote a graduation thesis on the Botanix concept, officially launching the Spiderchain project.

In terms of project progress, the Botanix testnet went live on November 30, 2023. According to its official Twitter data, as of April 21, the Botanix testnet had connected over 200,000 wallet addresses. In February of this year, its official X platform indicated that the mainnet would be launched soon, but did not disclose a specific time.

Currently, Botanix has launched two applications, AvocadoSwap and Bitzy, for user interaction.

In terms of financing, web3 asset data platform Rootdata shows that Botanix has completed two rounds of financing. In the $8.5 million seed round financing announced on May 7th, Polychain Capital, Placeholder Capital, ABCDE, Valor Equity Partners, and a series of angel investors including Andrew Kang, Fiskantes, Dan Held, The Crypto Dog, and Domo participated.

Recommended reading: "Analyzing Botanix: The First Fully Decentralized EVM Equivalent L2 on Bitcoin"

BOB

BOB claims to be a hybrid Layer2 that combines the security of Bitcoin with the versatility of Ethereum.

The project's whitepaper states that the BOB Rollup solution will be implemented in stages. Initially, it will be launched on the OP stack and will inherit the security of Bitcoin through a merged mining protocol (Bitcoin heavy staking). Its ultimate goal is to settle directly on the Bitcoin L1, possibly through ZK Rollups for full state verification. However, considering that Bitcoin is unlikely to support ZK verification in the short term, BOB believes that the best current design is OP rollup, and it provides on-chain anti-fraud functionality through mechanisms such as BitVM.

In terms of the team, the core members of BOB are almost the same as those who founded the Bitcoin DeFi application Interlay in 2020. BOB co-founder Alexei Zamyatin was previously the CEO of Interlay, and BOB co-founder and CTO Dominik Harz was the CTO of Interlay. They both come from Imperial College London, with backgrounds in cryptocurrency and computer research.

Interlay has received financing twice. In the $3 million seed round financing in July 2021, IOSG Ventures led the investment; in the $6.5 million financing in December 2021, DFG led the investment, with participation from IOSG Ventures, Hypersphere Ventures, and others. On May 9th, the Interlay token INTR had a fully diluted market value of approximately $33 million.

BOB announced the completion of a $10 million seed round financing in March this year, led by Castle Island Ventures, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Bankless Ventures, Mechanism Capital, IOSG Ventures, Hypersphere Ventures, among others, including previous shareholders of Interlay.

In terms of project progress, on May 1st, BOB launched the first phase of its mainnet, with a TVL of approximately $300 million. To mark the mainnet launch, it also announced the launch of the BOB Fusion Season 2 points program. The first quarter points program announced at the end of March has ended.

In April, BOB also announced a partnership with leading mining company Marathon Digital to develop ALYS, a Bitcoin sidechain for institutions, incubated by Marathon Digital.

In terms of the ecosystem, BOB announced that it has integrated with over 40 dApps, including LayerZero, Orbiter Finance, and iZUMi Finance.

Mezo

Mezo is a Bitcoin Layer2 developed by the crypto developer Thesis, founded in 2014. Mezo positions itself as the economic layer of Bitcoin Layer2.

Thesis states that Mezo differs from other Layer2 networks in that it enables users to access applications that promote the use of Bitcoin tokens, driving the circular Bitcoin economy, not just "savings technology." In simple terms, Mezo aims to focus more on the economic needs of BTC holders, allowing them to earn money through Bitcoin.

In terms of asset bridging, Mezo is based on the Bitcoin bridge tBTC developed by Threshold Network, combining the functionalities of Keep and NuCypher. Threshold Network is a privacy network protocol developed by Thesis. The locked Bitcoin in Mezo is not held by a central custodian and is secured through mechanisms such as randomly selecting signers and over-collateralization to reduce the risk of malfeasance.

In terms of BTC holder incentives, Mezo has set up three mechanisms: HODL Proof, HODL Score, and deposit custody. Users can contribute to network security through HODL Proof and earn rewards in return by locking BTC and MEZO tokens and verifying transactions through the CometBFT consensus. The longer the deposit is locked, the higher the HODL Score, which may be used as a weight for future airdrops. At the launch of the Mezo mainnet, users can contribute to network security through HODL Proof and earn rewards in return.

In terms of team background, Thesis founder Matt Luongo and co-founder and COO Corbin Pon both have backgrounds in computer research from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Matt Luongo has previously invested in crypto privacy project Iron Fish, liquidity rehypothecation project Rio Network, and identity and data management protocol Spruce.

In terms of project progress, Mezo has not yet launched a testnet or announced a specific launch date. According to its roadmap, Mezo plans to launch its mainnet in the second half of 2024, and the MEZO token will be released with the mainnet.

In terms of financing, on April 9th, Mezo announced the completion of a $21 million Series A financing round, led by Pantera Capital, with participation from Multicoin, Hack VC, Draper Associates, among others.

Thesis has received two rounds of financing. In April 2020, a $7.7 million financing round was led by Paradigm, with participation from Fenbushi Capital, Collaborative Funds, among others. In July 2021, a $21 million financing round was jointly led by ParaFi Capital and Nascent, with participation from Dragonfly, Fenbushi Capital, Polychain, among others.

Recommended reading: "Understanding Mezo: Pantera and Multicoin Participate, Building the Economic Layer of Bitcoin L2"

ZKM

ZKM is a zero-knowledge proof-based network aimed at unifying blockchains, and recently announced the launch of a Bitcoin Layer2 solution. ZKM is also a Metis incubated project for Ethereum Layer2, with two core technologies—Entangled Rollup architecture and a universal zkVM.

Entangled Rollup allows for cross-chain asset transfers without relying on traditional cross-chain bridges, instead attempting to synchronize the state between blockchains through recursive zero-knowledge proof technology, similar to Metis' Optimistic Rollup mechanism.

ZKM is currently attempting to extend this secure framework to Bitcoin Layer2. It has introduced the OCP mechanism (Optimistic Challenge Process) to achieve off-chain computation.

In terms of team background, ZKM co-founder and CEO Kevin Liu is also a co-founder of Metis. Although the team is not entirely of Western background, Metis, behind ZKM, was founded by Vitalik's mother Natalia Ameline and her friend Elena Sinelnikova, attracting considerable attention to ZKM.

In terms of financing, on May 7th, ZKM announced a $5 million Pre-A round of financing, led by OKX Ventures, with participation from Amber Group, P2 Ventures, Waterdrip Capital, Metis, Crypto.com Capital, among others.

Recommended reading: "How to View ZKM's Entry into the BTC L2 Track?"

QED Protocol

QED is positioned as the zk-native execution layer of Bitcoin.

QED states that it solves the fundamental scalability problem of blockchain by using zk-PARTH, a novel state model that enables large-scale parallel transaction proofs and block generation, allowing QED to scale to millions of transactions per second while ensuring security through mathematical proofs.

QED founder Carter Feldman graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a major in computer science.

In April, QED announced the establishment of the L20 Alliance in collaboration with StarkWare, zk.Link, Mina Foundation, 0(1)Labs, among others, dedicated to maintaining or solving the security, internet scale, and interoperability of applications and L2 solutions for Bitcoin.

In terms of project progress, the QED official website indicates that the private beta testnet is currently open, and the public testnet will be launched soon.

In terms of financing, on February 27, 2024, QED Protocol announced a $3 million financing round led by Arrington Capital, with participation from StarkWare, Draper Dragon, among others.

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