Lightning Labs Teases Protocol for Minting RWAs & Stablecoins

Hi NoRamp Community,

Daily News:

Bitcoin Magazine Owner Backs First Ordinals Fund

BitGo Bids for Wealth Management Market

Lightning Labs Teases Protocol for Minting RWAs & Stablecoins

Bitcoin Magazine Owner Backs First Ordinals Fund:

• The "Unbroken Chain" fund aims to raise $5 million from limited partners to actively trade Ordinals and inscriptions, which are essential to the rising trend of NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain. Their initial investments include buying a Bitcoin Rock image for about $85,000.

• Backed by Bitcoin Magazine's owner, the Unbroken Chain fund is spearheaded by Asher Corson from Consolidated Trading. Other significant participants are UXTO Management, BTC Inc.'s fund branch, and Isabel Foxen Duke, former communications director for Ordinals creator Casey Rodarmor. The anonymous creator of BRC-20 tokens, "Domo," is also supporting the fund.

• Ordinals allow NFTs to be embedded in the Bitcoin blockchain via inscriptions in small BTC transactions. These BRC-20 tokens and Ordinals, while potentially beneficial to Bitcoin, are controversial for some developers. They argue that these additions burden the network and increase fees, straying from Satoshi Nakamoto's original vision.

BitGo Bids for the Wealth Management Market:

• BitGo has acquired HeightZero, a platform providing wealth managers with tools to help clients gain exposure to digital assets. The move places BitGo in a strategic position to offer compliant and secure solutions for registered investment advisers (RIAs) and asset managers. The acquisition responds to the rising interest of asset managers in crypto, with a predicted surge in demand once ETFs get approved.

• 90% of asset allocators receive crypto-related questions from clients, only 15% allocate resources to the crypto domain in client accounts. About 38% cited custody concerns as a significant barrier. The union of HeightZero's technology and BitGo's institutional-grade custody aims to address these concerns and efficiently offer a comprehensive service to financial advisors in the U.S.

• The crypto industry is witnessing a trend where firms are keen to cater to the demands of wealth managers on their crypto journey. Standard Custody & Trust Company and Anchorage Digital have made recent partnerships in line with this trend, emphasizing the wealth management market's potential, estimated at $30 trillion.

Lightning Labs Teases Protocol for Minting RWAs & Stablecoins:

• Lightning Labs announced the "mainnet alpha" release of Taproot Assets, a protocol designed to mint non-native assets on Bitcoin and eventually on the Lightning Network.

• They highlighted the potential of stablecoins, referencing their growing role as significant holders of US Treasury’s. It further emphasized that stablecoins can be attractive alternatives to local currencies in emerging economies. Bringing stablecoins to Bitcoin wallets via Taproot Assets would expedite the process of introducing Bitcoin to billions of people worldwide who experience high inflation in their local currencies.

• Bitcoin's development landscape has witnessed substantial activity recently. The 2021 "Taproot" upgrade, the first major change since 2017, expanded the network's capabilities. Since its inception, native NFTs, or Ordinals, have boosted transactions and interest in Bitcoin's blockspace. Additionally, a research paper introduced "BitVM" in October, suggesting a protocol leveraging Taproot to craft a theoretically Turing complete zero-knowledge light client for Bitcoin.

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Proof of Work Podcast:

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