- Tim Draper’s VC firm Draper Associates led Zest Protocol’s $3.5 million seed round.
- Among the major participants are Binance Labs, Trust Machines, and Bitcoin Frontier Fund.
Billionaire Tim Draper led a $3.5 million seed round investment in Zest Protocol, an on-chain Bitcoin lending platform.
In addition to the billionaire’s venture capital firm Draper Associates, the round saw participation from Binance Labs, Trust Machines, and Flow Traders.
Bitcoin Frontier Fund, Gravity Fund, Primal Capital, Hyperithm, Miton Crypto, Tykhe Block Ventures, and Elixir Capital also participated.
Zest will use the funds to expand its decentralized peer-to-peer lending business, according to details published in a blog post Monday.
On the platform, users can lend or borrow Bitcoin (BTC) as collateral. This gives users the opportunity to generate yield or passive income without having to sell their Bitcoin.
Bitcoin DeFi Ecosystem Growth
To deliver its product to the community, Zest Protocol leveraged the Bitcoin Layer 2 network stack. The project leverages Stacks’ Nakamoto upgrade to allow asset bridging and unlock access to DeFi on Bitcoin.
Tycho Onnasch, founder of Zest Protocol, said:
“Unlike Ethereum, it is not possible to create basic DeFi primitives such as liquidity pools in Bitcoin L1. The Stacks sBTC upgrade will be a watershed moment for Bitcoin DeFi as it was designed from the ground up.”
Users holding sBTC can access lending or other revenue-generating features by funding their Zest Protocol balance with sBTC.