With the expansion of blockchain ecology, cross-chain has become a rigid demand, and related projects have also received good attention in the capital market.
Recently, Interlay, a cross-chain interoperability project based on Polkadot, announced the completion of US$6.5 million in financing. DFG led the investment, and IOSG, KR1, Hypersphere, Nexo Finance, D1 Ventures and Signum Capital participated in the investment. Another funding round after the USD seed round.
DFG founder and CEO James Wo said the team is "very proud to be an early supporter of Interlay," adding that the solution "extends cross-chain possibilities for Bitcoin."
Interlay plans to launch tokenized bitcoin on Polkadot, bringing bitcoin users into the Polkadot ecosystem.
Interlay lets users lock Bitcoin on a network of decentralized collateral vaults (Vaults) that connect Bitcoin and Polkadot, and users can then mint a Bitcoin-pegged token called interBTC and use it within the Polkadot ecosystem ; interBTC can be used as collateral for DeFi loans and other activities such as staking mining. Interlay's solution, which aims to be the first tokenized Bitcoin to launch on Polkadot through its own parachain.
"Our flagship product isinterBTC, a 1:1 Bitcoin-backed asset that is fully collateralized, interoperable and censorship-resistant, realizes the true free nature of BTC and decentralized finance. "Interlay said in the official introduction.
Tokenizing Bitcoin is actually not a new concept. According to DeFiPulse data, there are currently 328,651 BTC (approximately US$16.1 billion) existing on Ethereum in the form of WBTC, tBTC, and RENBTC. However, the Interlay team believes that these solutions rely on centralized solutions for hosting. Once a thunderstorm occurs, it will have a devastating impact on DeFi projects such as MakerDAO and Compound.
The Interlay team claims that interBTC is completely non-custodial. The founder of interBTC developed a method calledXCLAIMA decentralized protocol that can be used to lock, issue, and redeem bitcoins; the system is backed by a non-custodial collateral vault that maintains the physical backing of interBTC. Interlay’s co-founder and CEO Alexei Zamyatin said: “Bitcoin DeFi has so far relied on centralized providers, and interBTC provides a trustless and decentralized alternative.”
interBTC is just the first step of Interlay, and the next step is to develop a new type of Bitcoin cross-chain bridge, code-named LayBTC. To put it simply, users only need to click once in the wallet to withdraw DeFi income on Polkadot, Ethereum and other platforms, and at the same time put BTC back into the wallet. "LayBTC will be a whole new paradigm for using Bitcoin in DeFi, shifting the focus from flexibility to security and ease of use."
The team also hopes to launch a Polkadot parachain focused on Bitcoin DeFi, which will participate in Polkadot's second batch of parachain slot auctions; DeFi project integration.
In the future, Interlay will expand its products to other Layer1 blockchains such as Ethereum, Cosmos, Solana, and Avalanche. "You can use your bitcoin anywhere." On the official website, Interlay shouted such a slogan.
In addition to Bitcoin, Interlay also hopes to realize cross-chain transactions of other encrypted assets, including DOGE, LTC, ZEC, etc.; collateral; in terms of collateral, in addition to the local currency as collateral in the future, Interlay will also upgrade to a multi-collateral system, supporting stable coins, LP tokens, liquid collateral assets, maybe even an NFT.
