Botanix Labs has recently added several prominent figures in the crypto industry as node operators for its bitcoin layer-2 network.
Among the 16 new node operators announced by Botanix Labs on Thursday are Mike Novogratz’s digital asset financial services firm Galaxy and crypto custody specialist Fireblocks.
These operators have been brought on board and will go live once the Botanix mainnet is launched later this quarter.
By forming a federation of diverse entities running nodes, Botanix Labs is establishing its network as “decentralized from the start.”
“The network is set to transition to a dynamic federation to accommodate hundreds of nodes, with the ultimate aim of enabling anyone worldwide to operate their own Botanix node,” Botanix Labs stated in Thursday’s announcement.
Also joining the federation are blockchain developer Alchemy, bitcoin mining pool Antpool, and hedge fund manager UTXO Management.
Botanix’s testnet, known as Aragog, has introduced various tools that will serve as the foundation for its decentralized finance (DeFi) offerings: BTC-backed stablecoin Palladium, decentralized exchange Bitzy, and lending and borrowing market Spindle.
Botanix’s protocol Spiderchain was designed to be compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), the software behind Ethereum. This compatibility would theoretically allow any smart contract or DeFi application on Ethereum to work with Bitcoin-based Botanix.
The concept of developing Bitcoin as a settlement layer for DeFi activities on other blockchain networks has garnered increased interest from key figures in the crypto industry.
With BTC consistently holding a market cap of over 60% of the entire crypto market, developers see an opportunity in leveraging the substantial reserves held in BTC to fuel applications on networks better suited for DeFi, such as Ethereum, Solana, or Cardano.
During the Dubai Token2049 conference last month, Franklin Templeton’s managing principal of blockchain venture capital, Kevin Farrelly, referred to this trend as “infrastructure evolution…not narrative dilution,” in response to concerns from some in the Bitcoin community about it detracting from BTC’s core purpose as a store of value.
The involvement of industry giants like Galaxy and Fireblocks indicates that Bitcoin DeFi could potentially become a rapidly expanding sector.
Read More: Bitcoin’s Role in DeFi Is ‘Untapped Opportunity,’ Binance Research Says