The hot Ordinal Inscription protocol continues to attract new developers hoping to put their stamp on the Bitcoin blockchain. The most recent is Bitfinity, which aims to integrate the Ethereum Virtual Machine with Bitcoin. On Thursday, Bitfinity revealed that it would support Bitcoin-based DeFi services using sidechains on the Internet Computer.
To achieve this, Bitfinity has raised $7 million in new funding, led by San Francisco-based investment firm Polychain Capital and Connecticut-based ParaFi Capital.
“As demand for Bitcoin integration grows, we believe Bitfinity’s EVM provides new use cases and applications for the Bitcoin ecosystem,” Ben Forman, managing partner at ParaFi Capital, said in a statement. He said, “We are excited to support the entire Bitfinity team in their mission to improve Bitcoin utility.”
Launched in 2021 by the Dfinity Foundation, the Internet Computer (ICP) is an advanced blockchain-based computing system housed in a globally distributed network of machines. Internet computers use a proof-of-stake algorithm called Threshold Relay to achieve consensus. Nodes generate random numbers called “random beacons” that are used to select the next group of nodes and drive the platform’s protocol.
Bitfinity says smart contracts can hold and transfer Bitcoin and Ordinal assets on-chain using the Internet Computer’s threshold signature scheme, known as Chain-Key.
Bitfinity’s EVM scheme is not the first time the ICP network has been used to handle Ordinal inscriptions. In November, Ordinals Marketplace Bioniq was launched on Internet Computers.
Bitfinity founder Max Chamberlin said the project is not intended to replace Bitcoin, but to show Ethereum and Bitcoin proponents that they are not that different.
“Ethereum researcher Justin Drake once joked, ‘Ethereum is Bitcoin.’ Bitfinity founder Max Chamberlin said: decryption. “In the spirit of that statement, I believe we are all Bitcoin users. Bitfinity is for everyone, and while some Bitcoin purists may shudder at the thought, they did not support Ordinals or BRC-20 tokens anyway, and the results have become dizzyingly high.”
Bitfinity may offer lower costs and faster speeds, but the company still needs to convince Bitcoin purists and Ordinal enthusiasts to use its platform instead of mining directly on the blockchain.
“Bitfinity doesn’t change the fact that Ordinals are etched directly on the Bitcoin blockchain, so it doesn’t change the core spirit of what an on-chain digital asset is,” Chamberlin said. “It’s just cheaper to use them.”
Since its launch last year, more than 50 million Ordinal inscriptions have been issued on the Bitcoin blockchain. One of the most recent inscriptions was a letter from U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler announcing the approval of several spot Bitcoin ETFs.
In addition to Ordinals, Bitfinity stated that its future Bitcoin plans include BRC-20 tokens in the protocol. The BRC-20 standard allows users to create meme coins on the Bitcoin network.
“If we take lessons learned from Ethereum, many users will prefer a cheaper sidechain or L2 to execute transactions,” Chamberlin concluded. “So maybe we can join back in the spirit of Justin Drake and declare that Ethereum is not Bitcoin, Bitcoin is actually Ethereum over L2 like Bitfinity and much more .”
Edited by Ryan Ozawa.