Dear Investors,
We are excited to announce that dlcBTC is now live on Arbitrum! We have set up wBTC-dlcBTC pools on Curve and Uniswap v3.
Today, we are the only team that has been whitelisted to use the bridge. So, we’ve minted and deposited around $10k of dlcBTC into these pools.
Our next step involves onboarding Amber Group as our first dlcBTC merchant.
Merchants must fulfill specific requirements including executing KYC, using a custodian or hardware wallet that supports Taproot (currently BitGo, Cobo, or Ledger Live), and utilizing a disaster recovery service (e.g. CoinCover) on their private keys.
After Amber is online, we will be further expanding our merchant network.
Amber has taken a unique approach: rather than using a Ledger or another third-party wallet or custodian, they instead built Taproot capability into their proprietary wallet.
Although this required a few extra weeks’ development effort, it now offers them the advantage of reduced fees. With their integration almost complete, they are poised to begin minting soon.
But instead of focusing on the mechanics, I wanted to highlight an example use of dlcBTC that is quite exciting for BTC holding institutions:
Swaap, a prominent DeFi protocol on Ethereum and Arbitrum, generates investment yields using a recursive Eth staking system combined with a market-making bot.
In its initial tests, Swaap achieved a 22% yield on ETH.
The protocol plans to extend its support to wrapped Bitcoin, and the founder is confident that a similar strategy can produce a 10% yield on dlcBTC as well.
We are highly optimistic about the opportunities that Swaap and other DeFi protocols present. Historically, yields on wBTC have been relatively low, typically ranging from 0.5% to 1%.
Alternatives, like Merlin Chain’s points program, are often vulnerable to market fluctuations and sudden collapses.
Achieving a 10% yield through proven strategies, such as Swaap’s use of Eth staking yield, would represent a significant breakthrough for Bitcoin investors.
Thank you for your continued support and trust in dlcBTC. We are committed to pushing the boundaries of what Bitcoin can achieve in the DeFi space and beyond.
Overview
We’re testing integrating dlcBTC mint capability into Ledger Live (in conjunction with Leather and OKX wallet), BitGo and Cobo. We’re also in early discussion with custodians such as GK8 who could implement Taproot to become custodians for dlcBTC merchants as well.
Once BitGo, Ledger and Cobo become ready to mint dlcBTC, we’ll be able to complete the onboarding process for more dlcBTC merchants. At that point, our TVL should start to visibly grow.
Our security audit with MetaTrust, a leading security audit firm and fellow ABCDE portfolio company, has essentially finished. No Critical or High issues were found. MetaTrust will be publishing their final report shortly.
Sales and Business Development
We are signing up our initial set of dlcBTC Merchants. We’ve received verbal interest from trading heads at Galaxy, FalconX, several BTC mining funds, OTC desks and exchanges.
On the demand side, we are pursuing partnerships with DeFi protocols, including lending pools, LP pools, stablecoins and other yield-generating protocols.
We’ve also met several trading firms that have chosen not to use wBTC due to its counterparty risk. We’re excited at the market opportunity, both to engage wBTC customers and to expand the market by bringing in new participants.
We’ve begun conversations for listing $dlcBTC and $DLC with leading centralized exchanges, including OKX, Binance, Coinbase and Kraken.
Marketing and PR
I’ve just held my first appearance on NASDAQ TV! Watch it here: https://x.com/AkiBalogh/status/1785366306130170151
We held our first side event, at Token 2049 in Dubai. The event was entitled “How to Safely Earn Yields on your Bitcoin” and was co-sponsored by OKX, Amber Group, BitLayer and Beosin. Over 150 people attended. See a highlight reel here: https://x.com/dlcBTC/status/1784918961659801839
We’ve just launched a new website! Shout-out to Roza and Rok from our team for designing and building it. The new website offers a much more professional look, and the graphics are visually striking.
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 are launching our initial DLC Attestor Network to production! Our initial attestors include HashKey Cloud, Republic, OKX, P2P, Stakin and Dextrac. We will be expanding the Attestor network as we grow.
We’ve begun implementing Chainlink Proof of Reserves. Also, we’ve chosen Chainlink CCIP as the bridging technology that we’ll use to bridge from Arbitrum to Ethereum L1, as well as to L2s including Polygon, OP and Base.
We’re making good progress on our $DLC tokenomics development. We’re on track to launch $DLC in Q3. The core purpose of $DLC will be to help decentralize our DLC Attestation network.
Finance and Fundraising
This Q2, we are actively preparing to raise a seed round, targeting a $7Mn raise. We have initiated discussions with potential anchor investors. Given my location in New York, our focus is currently on identifying a US-based lead investor.
For this round, we aim to engage our customers as investors. Therefore, for every $10k of BTC invested, we will require the investor to self-wrap 1 BTC into dlcBTC for use in DeFi (while retaining full custody of both their BTC and dlcBTC).
I will provide updates on this seed round, including information about our lead investor, as they become available.
How You Can Help
We are actively looking to form partnerships with a wide variety of financial institutions, including hedge funds, OTC trading desks, prime brokerages, miners and other financial institutions that hold or trade Bitcoin.
If you are in contact with any institutions that hold BTC or wBTC, please introduce me directly.
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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