In our latest Space we were joined by BOB, Avalon Labs, Garden, and Summer.fi to discuss the best opportunities to ride the BTCFi wave!
In case you missed it, here are the top questions from the event.
What is swBTC?
"Swell BTC (swBTC) is a way for users to restake wBTC through Swell to earn yield through EigenLayer and Symbiotic, and use it throughout DeFi. We built this product as we believe all roads lead to Ethereum, and we feel that it will be a growing market over time."
— Kilian, Swell
Introduce your protocol and its role in the BTCFi ecosystem.
"Garden is a trustless bridge which also happens to be the fastest Bitcoin bridge in the market right now. We enabled Bitcoin > any asset swaps in ~10 minutes, which also includes the recently supported wBTC.
Garden makes it possible for BTCFi applications and chains to be connected between each other. It also allows the transfer of Bitcoin value at great speeds, whilst maintaining the important factor of trustlessness and decentralization. We are really excited to enable a lot of DeFi activity in the space through our product.'
— Pankaj, Garden
"Avalon enables BTCFi lending which is one of the key pieces in the space. We are working with a number of products and also have a unique centralized finance angle as well, where we allow an institution to come into a flow through our CeFi side."
— Jason, Avalon
"With Summer.fi you can do yield loops on multiple trades ultimately in one click. Summer.fi is integrated into apps such as Morpho which swBTC was recently added to as collateral, so you can now loop the swBTC token and the expected yield through the various points, against the borrow rate of wBTC."
— Chris, Summer.fi
"BOB is a hybrid L2 powered by Bitcoin and Ethereum. The hybrid stance is an important part of the stack as we combine the security, liquidity, user base and innovation of the two largest blockchains. We already have a vibrant ecosystem of DeFi native apps including lending protocols, DEXs, and support for wBTC and BTC. We also launched a unique protocol called the BOB gateway where users can convert BTC on Bitcoin mainnet to wBTC and tBTC, in a quick, trustless one click manner."
— Pankaj, BOB
Why should DeFi users care about BTCFi?
"If we look at onchain TVL, a lot of the activity on Ethereum mainnet is denominated in ETH and based on the price of ETH rising to generate hype and confidence for moving funds around.
The BTCFi vision is based on the belief that over time more BTC will find its way onto Ethereum mainnet, bootstrapping new DeFi protocols, trade markets, and user activity, as well as allow new things to happen on Ethereum. It is a fundamental belief that more BTC will come to mainnet, and that results in more TVL and onchain activity."
— Kilian, Swell
"In recent years, Bitcoin has been the most used collateral token as collateral. BTC is one of the most stable cryptocurrencies, and its value as a collateral token is underrated. When it comes to projects such as LSTs and those that support the staking of Bitcoin assets, you're unlocking so much potential for users and there is definitely a huge market there."
— Pankaj, BOB
Where do you see BTCFi going and how can we get more DeFi users to crossover?
"BTCFi is finally making Bitcoin fun again, and in the end will allow access and opportunities to more communities. The growth potential is immense, and we are finally able to get new and old users to want to participate. As more BTC is staked and utilized in protocols, the more the market will grow."
— Jason, Avalon
"One of the reasons why Bitcoiners wouldn't want to come to Ethereum is because they are worried about getting hacked. At this point in time there are no trust minimized bridges, so the best we can do right now is make sure the UI/UX is as easy as it can be. This is why we created the BOB gateway, so that users can have a cheap and easy onboarding experience."
— Pankaj, BOB
Thanks to everyone who attended the event!
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