Dear Current and Prospective Investors,
I’m delighted to inform you of a major development for our business.
At founding, we felt that DLC technology will provide a safer way for institutions to participate in BTCFi. Due to iBTC’s theft-proof design, there is no potential for institutions to lose their principal. This provides a much more trustworthy and transparent experience than centralized wrapped Bitcoins (wBTC, cbBTC, FBTC) or bridged alternatives (tBTC, Bitcoin L2s, etc.).
This thesis is now playing out. We’re soon entering into an agreement with Hashnote, a Cumberland/DRW company. Hashnote, who represents institutional Bitcoin LPs totaling over $3Bn in deposits, is now onboarding to be our biggest LP to date. As a first step in our partnership, they will be minting $100Mn of iBTC this Q4. In fact, Hashnote’s CEO believes that he can secure up to $500Mn or more in interest from LPs. The liquidity will primarily be placed on Arbitrum and Ethereum and will allow us to complete our listings with AAVE and other DeFi platforms.
We’re also in discussions with other companies in the Cumberland/DRW portfolio. Cumberland Trading will serve as our second market maker for iBTC, alongside Amber Group. Additionally, we’re exploring partnerships with Ergonia and Canton Network, both in the Cumberland portfolio as well.
On a separate note, we’ve begun developing our second product: 1 Click Yield (1CY), a solution enabling BTC staking from self-custody into any EVM staking LRT or DeFi vault strategy. 1CY provides a more composable BTC staking option compared to Babylon. It integrates seamlessly with any vault and delivers higher yields from securing EVM than the Cosmos ecosystem. Read more about 1CY here.
In personal news, I’ve completed two major milestones. MarketMuse, the AI optimization company that I founded in 2013 and led through 2020, was acquired by SiteImprove a few weeks ago. And, on October 19th, I got married!
Sales and Business Development
We continue to expand our merchant program, with the goal of onboarding at least 5 institutions in Q4. We are currently onboarding Hashnote, DV Chain, IMC and Dialectic, and are in discussions with Pattern Research, Fasanara, Hashkey OTC, FalconX and others.
In terms of custodians, we are now onboarding DFNS (alongside Fordefi and Ledger) as minting options. In further good news, BitGo and Fireblocks have both committed to supporting iBTC minting in Q1. Discussions are in progress with Anchorage and Copper as well.
We’re expanding our attestor network. We’re onboarding Everstake, Nethermind, InfStones, and are in discussions with P2P, ChorusOne,Kiln, Finoa and TwinStake. With these, we should soon be able to complete our 15-operator network.
We are in discussions with Cumberland Trading to join us as our second market maker and OTC desk, alongside Amber Group.
We continue to be in discussions with Binance and other exchanges re: potential $iBTC and $DLC listings. If Hashnote’s mint completes in Q4, and if we can secure commitments from CEXes in Q1, we may be able to launch our token in Q2.
Marketing and PR
We launched a successful marketing campaign on the Jasper Vault options trading platform, offering First Trade Protection with rewards capped at 50M iBTC points. The campaign reached its goal in one week with 10,000 participants, contributing to our growth to over 1,000 wallets holding iBTC and adding over 6,000 followers on X.
The marketing team has begun a rebranding project to align the brand better with both institutions and retail. Stay tuned for updates coming soon.
The marketing team is preparing for the launch of 1CY. View a teaser of our new product announced at Chainlink Smartcon.
We are hiring contractors to assist the marketing team in our efforts: branding designer, web designer, promotional video animator, and technical writer. Please let us know if you have someone who is a good fit. See more information about the roles here.
Testimonials
A few recent quotes from our fans:
“You’re a better, faster, cheaper version of wBTC” – Head of Trading at a leading prime brokerage
“iBTC’s decentralized wrapping solution and Symbiotic’s permissionless shared security protocol unlock new staking yield opportunities for Bitcoin users” – Felix Lutsch, Head of Ecosystem, Symbiotic
"You’re sovereign Bitcoin for everything else” – Leading Bitcoin Investment Fund
Product
1CY (1 Click Yield) continues to open doors and lead many of our discussions with investors, protocols and Bitcoin asset managers, including TradFi institutions. Read more about 1CY here.
An Institutional focused “1CY Pro” product may prove a great fit for TradFi, as it will come with additional features such as better logging and reporting, and also spins up staking vaults specifically for that customer/institution, which prevents any chance of co-mingling of assets.
While Symbiotic remains our preferred Bitcoin staking partner due to our good relationship there, we continue to explore launching with other protocols such as Karak and Eigenlayer.
Finance and Fundraising
Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting Arthur Hayes, who is investing in our seed round through Maelstrom, his family office. Arthur reinforced our thesis: institutions need simple (“one-click”) financial products.
I strongly prefer raising strategic capital whenever possible. We’re soon meeting with Cumberland Labs and are continuing discussions with Auros, CMT, XBTO, and other trading teams. Some of our node operators are also interested in making strategic investments.
Given the recent positive developments, I am confident we’ll complete our seed round in Q4.
How You Can Help
We’re looking to meet more institutions that hold BTC and are looking for safe yields. These may include asset managers, proprietary trading desks, family offices and other financial institutions.
Best,
Aki
PS – Missed any of our previous Investor Updates? Read past editions here.
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