Blockstream secures $210m debt funding

Blockstream has closed a $210 million convertible note funding round led by Fulgur Ventures.

According to the Bitcoin (BTC) infrastructure firm, the funding will help accelerate the company’s layer-2 products.

Blockstream said in a press release that it also plans to use some of the funding to expand its mining capacity and purchase more Bitcoin. In the crypto market, one company that has employed this strategy successfully so far is MicroStrategy.

As of writing, Michael Saylor’s publicly traded company has amassed 252,220 BTC.

In January this year, Blockstream announced a $125 million convertible note financing raise, which it said would be used to expand its institutional Bitcoin mining services. The firm also sought $50 million for a similar initiative in August 2023.

Accelerating layer-2 networks

Per Blockstream’s announcement on Oct. 15, the $210 million convertible debt offering will bolster the development of its two flagship layer-2 solutions: Liquid Network and Greenlight.

“This fundraise is pivotal in our journey to bridge Bitcoin with broader finance,”

Blockstream chief executive officer Adam Back.

Liquid Network is a Bitcoin layer-2 solution interoperable with Lightning Network.

Launched in 2018 as Bitcoin’s first sidechain, Liquid offers infrastructure that allows for asset tokenization on the Bitcoin network. More than $1.8 billion worth of assets have been issued on the network, Blockstream noted, including stablecoins and tokenized securities.

According to Blockstream, Liquid has 3,844 bitcoins locked on-chain. Meanwhile, its growing adoption across the $300 billion real-world asset market includes the issuance of $1 billion in promissory notes by Mexico’s Mifiel.

Greenlight is a Blockstream solution that allows developers to bring non-custodial Bitcoin Lightning Network-powered payments to decentralized applications and businesses.

Blockstream has appointed Michael Minkevich as its new chief operations officer. Minkevich is a former product engineer at digital asset strategy and engineering platform Luxoft.