Dear Investors,
We are excited to announce a huge development that marks the culmination of over two years of work.
We are working with the Aave Chan Initiative (ACI) to list dlcBTC as collateral on AAVE.
Currently, wBTC is the primary way to use BTC in DeFi. However, its centralization risk poses a significant threat.
If BitGo fails, over $10Bn of value could become unbacked, potentially triggering another crypto winter.
Where does AAVE fit in? Well, the primary use of wBTC is as borrow collateral on AAVE.
However, the ACI is aware of wBTC’s risks and is eager to introduce a more decentralized wrapped Bitcoin option.
To make this possible, Chainlink will build a custom oracle for us.
We've recently implemented Chainlink Proof of Reserve, and Chainlink will be combining this PoR feed with their BTC-USD feed to build a custom dlcBTC oracle.
Our contacts at Chainlink are excited to be live, as they see our "self-wrapping" solution as the safest way to bring BTC to DeFi.
AAVE’s governance proposal was published last week and, as per their process, will move to voting tomorrow via their Skyward (white-glove service) program. Marc Zeller, the President of ACI, assured us that dlcBTC should be live on AAVE within approximately 25 days.
As our colleague Peter likes to say, "let's get dlcBTC into the bloodstream of DeFi!"
Overview
We’ve launched native Bitcoin staking to mainnet! This was done on Ethereum, in partnership with Enzyme (vault) and Nektar (liquid restaking protocol). Merchants can self-wrap their BTC to mint dlcBTC, which can be put into an Enzyme vault to mint rstBTC. rstBTC both earns staking yield and can be used elsewhere in the Nektar ecosystem. The miracle of DeFi composability made this possible, enabling us to launch several months before Babylon’s long-awaited release.
We’ve signed an agreement with Ripple to launch dlcBTC on XRPL. Their foundation will provide a grant to incentivize use, and they will launch co-marketing activities with us. Ripple is an institutional leader with nearly unmatched global reach, so we’re excited about both the volume this will drive as well as the co-marketing it enables.
Michael, the founder of Curve, has built a custom ngoracle for us. This now enables dlcBTC to be listed as collateral in Curve Lend and to be collateral in crvUSD.
We’ve decided to move our potential $DLC token launch from September to November. Reasons for this change include: more time needed for exchange listings (e.g. with Binance, OKX and others) and to build traction and ecosystem awareness. We can only TGE once so, we want to make sure we’re in good shape for when it does happen!
Sales and Business Development
We’re expanding our merchant program. As you’ll recall, we’ve started with Amber Group. But we’ve expanded our set to include IMC (which has over 65,000 BTC in their treasury), Psalion and others. Other merchants in process include Time Research, Nascent, Hashkey OTC and LTP. These institutions self-wrap their BTC to earn yield in various DeFi protocols.
On the protocol side, we’ve recently partnered with Nektar, Native Lend, Radiant, Jasper Research, Curve Lend, Swaap and Karak. These protocols will list dlcBTC within their platforms, providing use cases and incentives that drive demand for dlcBTC.
We’ve in conversations for listing $dlcBTC and $DLC with leading centralized exchanges, including OKX, Binance, Coinbase and Kraken.
Marketing and PR
We’ve just announced that we are the first protocol in the world to enable native Bitcoin to be staked on mainnet! We’ve launched this months before Babylon’s expected launch. This was accomplished via the miracle of composability, and via a partnership with Nektar and Enzyme. Read more here: https://www.dlc.link/case-studies/dlc-link-nektar-and-enzyme-partner-to-launch-native-btc-staking-on-ethereum-mainnet
Chainlink’s marketing team co-published an article outlining our use of Proof of Reserves and CCIP, their bridge technology. In fact, today we are the only protocol that uses both CCIP and PoR! Read more here: https://www.dlc.link/case-studies/dlc-link-integrates-chainlink-proof-of-reserve-por-and-ccip-to-support-dlcbtc-adoption
We’ve published a number of articles recently, including a comparison between dlcBTC and Babylon and an overview of the dlcBTC merchant system. For more, please visit: https://www.dlcbtc.com/media
We invite all investors to join our Telegram community at English: https://t.me/dlcbtc
For native Mandarin speakers, you can join our Chinese community at https://t.me/dlcbtc_cn
Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/dlcBTC
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
"We see DLC.Link as a foundational building block in DeFi, with the potential to become a multi-billion-dollar business. " — Nicole Liu, Comma 3 Ventures
"DLC.Link is making Bitcoin more composable & usable in DeFi" – Oliver Birch, Global Head, Chainlink BUILD Program
"You're sovereign Bitcoin for everything else” – Leading Bitcoin Investment Fund.
Product
We’ve begun expanding our DLC Attestor network from 7 to 15. We have more inbound interest in running attestors than slots that we can fill, so we’re selecting node operators strategically.
We are soon launching our points dashboard. Users (retail or institutional) can earn 1X points for holding dlcBTC and 5X points for using it as collateral. The 1X point reward applies for both merchants (who mint it) and retail (who swap for it on exchanges).
We’re making good progress on our $DLC tokenomics development. We’re on track to launch $DLC in Q4. The core purpose of $DLC will be to help decentralize our DLC Attestation network.
Finance and Fundraising
We are actively preparing to raise a seed round of $5 million USD, with the potential to oversubscribe.
To date, we've received verbal interest from: Round 13 ($750k), Good News Ventures ($500k), Vitalbridge ($500k), Monday Capital, Ethan Buchman (Tendermint/Cosmos), Paul Taylor (BlackRock), and Mayur Gupta (CMO of Kraken).
Since I live in New York, my focus is on identifying a US-based co-lead to start.
How You Can Help
We are actively looking to form partnerships with a wide variety of financial institutions, including hedge funds, OTC trading desks and prime brokerages that hold or trade Bitcoin.
If you are in contact with any institutions that hold or trade BTC or wBTC, please introduce me directly.
We’d also love to meet DeFi protocols involved in staking, lend/borrow or yield generation.
Best,
Aki
PS – Missed any of our previous Investor Updates? Read past editions here: https://bit.ly/dlc-link-investor-updates.
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