The Lightning Labs team has completed a $70 million Series B funding round. The proceeds will be used to develop the Taro protocol, which allows you to issue stablecoins on the Bitcoin network and use them in Lightning Network applications.
Today we are announcing Taro, a new protocol for issuing assets in Bitcoin and Lightning, and our $70 million Series B fundraiser! 🍠
One small step to bring Bitcoin to billions. 🌍
A giant leap to power the world’s financial system #bitcoins. 💱https://t.co/dpzdrwDMTZ
— Lightning Labs⚡️🍠 (@lightning) April 5, 2022
Taro is a framework that allows you to create a wide variety of assets, including stablecoins, and move them to the Lightning Network. The creation of the protocol became possible after the Taproot update was activated in November 2021.
Taro aims to “bitcoin the dollar” by leveraging the security and stability of the first cryptocurrency’s blockchain, as well as the speed, scalability and low fees of the Lightning Network.
The technology may be in demand in emerging markets, especially in conditions of high inflation – you only need to access the Internet through a mobile phone, rather than a bank account. Lightning Labs is convinced that Taro will allow bitcoin to secure its “Internet money” status and a protocol for transferring value.
“As far as the Lightning component is concerned, you are driven over bitcoin. You literally transfer “dollars” to bitcoins and vice versa”Elizabeth Stark, co-founder and CEO of Lightning Labs, told The Block.
By “dollar” I mean a stable coin pegged to the US currency. The senior executive aims to increase the share of the use of “stablecoins” in daily payments and “make bitcoin reach billions”. According to Stark, some “big players” are interested in the possibility of issuing stablecoins using Taro.
You can learn more about the algorithm of its work on the Lightning Labs page.
The developers have released the protocol code in the public domain for integration with other versions of the Lightning Network from Blockstream and others.
The Lightning Labs investment round was led by Valor Equity Partners and Baillie Gifford. Also present were Goldcrest Capital, Kingsway, Moore Strategic Ventures, Brevan Howard, Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev and NYDIG and Silvergate CEO Alan Lane.
Recall that in November 2021, NYDIG absorbed BottlePay, the Bitcoin payment service based on the Lightning Network.
The implementation team previously raised $15.5 million in a seed funding round led by Alan Howard and partners from Goldman Sachs and NYDIG.
Source: Fork Log
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