Bitcoin and blockchain infrastructure company Blockstream Corp Inc., said Tuesday it raised $210 million in new funding led by Fulgur Ventures.
The company said the funds would be used to expand the development and adoption of the company’s layer 2 Bitcoin technology, which is used to scale blockchain transactions, mining operations and financial product development.
Blockstream Liquid networka layer 2 solution designed by Blockstream co-founder and CEO Dr. Adam Back, addresses the growing demand for secure, scalable Bitcoin-based financial products by providing a “secondary blockchain” protocol built on top of blockchain Bitcoin.
Liquid’s features allow it to provide faster transactions, with block times of 1 minute versus 10 minutes previously, confidential transactions, and new asset types such as securities and digital collectibles. The network also brings greater scalability to the Bitcoin blockchain and greater programmability, allowing developers to build applications on the blockchain.
The company said more than $1.8 billion in assets, including stablecoins, tokenized bonds and securities, have been issued on the Liquid Network since its launch in 2018. “The latter raise funds represents a defining moment for Blockstream as we enter a critical new phase of growth for further bridging the gap between Bitcoin and the broader world of finance,” Back said.
An example of how Liquid has been used for financial services is with Mexican fintech operator Mitifel which is digitizing over $1 billion in promissory notes for debt financing between lenders and global investment banks on the network.
The Liquid Network works with Blockstream’s Lightning Network service, Basic Lightninga protocol implementation that enables faster, cheaper, and more scalable Bitcoin transactions. It works by consolidating transactions across assets, stablecoins and bitcoins for payments. It also works with the company’s cloud-hosted infrastructure Green lightTHE the company “Lightning-as-a-Service” offering that allows developers to integrate LN into their applications with a few lines of code.
In addition to the funding news, Blockstream named Michael Minkevich chief operating officer. Minkevich previously worked for software development company Luxoft, where he was responsible for product engineering.
“Blockstream has a unique product portfolio and one of the best engineering teams building reliable Bitcoin solutions, making it ideally suited to lead the ongoing transformation of the fintech industry,” said Minkevich .
Image: Pixabay
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