Galaxy, Fireblocks to Operate Nodes on Bitcoin Layer-2 Botanix
Mike Novogratz's digital asset financial services firm Galaxy and crypto custody specialist Fireblocks are among 16 new node operators on Botanix, the company announced on Thursday.
The operators have been onboarded and will be live once the Botanix mainnet launches later this quarter.
With the creation of a federation of different entities running nodes, Botanix Labs is establishing its eponymous network as "decentralized from the start."
"The network will soon migrate to a dynamic federation to support hundreds of nodes, with the eventual goal of allowing anyone in the world to run their own Botanix node," Botanix Labs said in Thursday's announcement.
Also joining the federation are blockchain developer Alchemy, bitcoin mining pool Antpool and hedge fund manager UTXO Management.
Botanix's testnet, known as Aragog, introduced various tools that will form the basis of its decentralized finance (DeFi) offering: BTC-backed stablecoin Palladium, decentralized exchange Bitzy and lending and borrowing market Spindle.
Botanix's protocol Spiderchain was built to be compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), the software that powers Ethereum. This in theory would make any smart contract or DeFi application on Ethereum compatible with Bitcoin-based Botanix.
Developing Bitcoin into a settlement layer for DeFi activity elsewhere in the blockchain world has become a matter of increasing interest among the great and the good of the crypto industry.
With BTC's market cap consistently accounting for over 60% of the entire crypto market, developers see the opportunity in harnessing the deep reserves held in BTC to finance applications on networks more technically suited to DeFi, such as Ethereum, Solana or Cardano.
At the Dubai Token2049 conference last month Franklin Templeton's managing principal of blockchain venture capital Kevin Farrelly described this as trend as "infrastructure evolution...not narrative dilution," in response to those in the Bitcoin community who believe it dilutes from BTC's core purpose as a store of value.
The involvement of the likes of Galaxy and Fireblocks demonstrates that Bitcoin DeFi may become a sector that grows and grows.
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Tom's Guide
40 minutes ago
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Yahoo
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Bitcoin's 5% Problem: Why Most People Still Don't Own Crypto—And What That Means for Its Future
Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. A simple question posted on Reddit recently sparked one of the most revealing debates about Bitcoin's future: 'If only 5% of the population owns BTC, what is the use case?' The post, which garnered hundreds of responses, exposed a fundamental tension that's been brewing in the crypto space for years. The original poster laid out the problem starkly: 'So, if 19 million bitcoin are presently 'minted' and only 4% of the population are holders... What good is a 'currency' that only 5% of the population owns???' It's a fair question that cuts to the heart of Bitcoin's identity crisis—and the answer reveals why Bitcoin might be succeeding precisely because it's failing as a traditional currency. Don't Miss: — no wallets, just price speculation and free paper trading to practice different strategies. Grow your IRA or 401(k) with Crypto – . 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CNBC
an hour ago
- CNBC
Investors expect bitcoin to break out to new records in the second half from a consolidation phase
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