Dear Investors,
Happy New Year! A recent Cointelegraph article predicts 2025 as the year of Bitcoin DeFi yield, with over $300Bn in potential. However, safety concerns remain a key barrier to adoption.
Many BTCFi solutions depend on bridges and custodians without clearly outlining the associated risks. Retail users, lacking the resources for thorough due diligence, are particularly vulnerable. Attractive marketing often conceals security vulnerabilities and the centralized control of user funds by project teams.
Institutions, in contrast, have the necessary expertise to evaluate projects from technical, risk management, regulatory, and other critical perspectives.
Asset managers consistently emphasize 5-6% BTC yield, achieved safely and at scale, as the industry's primary goal. Yield is generated through trading, lending, derivatives, and staking. Safety is paramount, with LPs preferring reliable returns from self-custody over higher but riskier yields from bridging.
Cumberland and Mysten Labs (Sui Foundation) share this vision, forecasting over $10Bn in institutional demand for a 5-6% APY, safe BTC product. Both are supporting our seed round to help make it a reality.
With custodian integrations, regulatory approvals, and institutional onboarding in progress, we are positioned to unlock substantial TVL and yield opportunities this year.
Sales and Business Development
Cumberland will list iBTC in their global OTC catalog, providing access to one of the largest OTC desks in crypto. This partnership plays a key role in delivering safe BTC yield products to whales, miners, family offices and institutions.
Tungsten will be the first regulated custodian to support iBTC minting and is filing with the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) regulator.
Our main challenge remains institutional reliance on BitGo and Fireblocks support. Both have committed to enabling iBTC minting in Q1 or Q2. Cumberland is requesting that Fireblocks prioritize us.
VanEck has completed onboarding and is preparing to mint their first iBTC. They plan to use iBTC for prop trading on AVAX and Sui, establish iBTC-AUSD pools, and support iBTC listings on perpetual DEXs.
In December, we launched iBTC on AVAX and BNB. Then, over the holidays, Flowdesk began testing iBTC minting on XRPL. We are on track to launch on Sui in January and StarkNet in February.
Marketing and PR
We've continued to build momentum and increase awareness of iBTC through a variety of initiatives this past month. Here are some highlights:
We launched a successful Christmas campaign in collaboration with Garden Finance, BIMA, and Satlayer.
We're preparing for launch of our ambassador program and have already received interest from 15 strong candidates. This program will be key to building grassroots support and advocacy for iBTC.
We proactively educated users about the potential risks associated with Stacks sBTC on its launch day, positioning iBTC as a safer and more reliable alternative. This initiative generated significant discussion and reinforced our commitment to user security.
We executed targeted onboarding campaigns with key partners like InfStones.
Capitalizing on the excitement around XRP, we launched a dedicated campaign to promote iBTC’s launch on XRPL.
We published the first two video guides on X and YouTube, providing users with strategies for using iBTC in DeFi to earn yield on their Bitcoin. This is part of our ongoing effort to create valuable educational resources for earning safe yield on Bitcoin.
Testimonials
“You’re a better, faster, cheaper version of wBTC” – Head of Trading at a leading prime brokerage
“iBTC unlocks 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
We have reached our goal of 14 external node operators who meet our criteria of having a top-tier reputation in the industry, and have a minimum of $250m in total staked assets. This is a great milestone for us.
We have nearly finished our development of the remaining modules for our integration as an AVS into Symbiotic. We will be one of their premier launch partners during their go-live in late January.
For early Q1, we are designing and launching several yield tokens. These are tokens which automatically accrue yield by representing yield-generating investment strategies. This will give us more products which we can leverage to get activity in the market.
We are launching on both Sui and Starknet within the first 2 months of Q1. Preparations for this have already begun.
Our engineering team has completed a small but critical refactor of our attestor app code, which will enable us to connect to more blockchains quickly.
Finance and Fundraising
We have secured around half of our round, with $2.5Mn left to raise.
Seed round investors include Cumberland, Round 13 Digital, Contribution Capital, Paul Taylor (BlackRock), Mayur Gupta (CMO Kraken), David Shin and Matt Paik (LayerZero).
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, OTC desks, market makers and other financial institutions.
Best,
Aki
PS – Missed any of our previous Investor Updates? Read past editions here.
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