bitcoin wallet pioneer Oyl has raised $3 million in pre-seed investment from a variety of investors, including UTXO Management and Domo, the creator of the BRC-20 token standard.
The investment marks a notable shift in cryptocurrency investment trends, with several ethereum nft funds making their first foray into a bitcoin-focused business. Arca, which led the round, is a venture firm with a history of investing in ethereum NFTs and alternative blockchains. Now, the company is expanding its portfolio into the bitcoin sphere through Ordinals. Other investors include Foresight Ventures, Taproot Wizards CEO Udi Wertheimer, and distinguished nft funds Kanosei and FlamingoDAO.
“The speed of bitcoin development is limited primarily by the lack of infrastructure; we are in a race to see who can create the most usable backend tools for developers to build on,” said Domo, creator of BRC-20.
Based in Brooklyn, New York, Oyl will launch in the coming weeks, aiming to become the first bitcoin wallet to incorporate in-wallet trading of bitcoin and Ordinals. The app is designed to support market aggregation for BRC-20 and facilitate exchange integrations with the Omnisat.io “bitcoin DeFi” protocol.
“We want to support the new wave of bitcoin development, starting with creation tools like RPC, all the way to consumer platforms like Wallet,” Alec Taggart, CEO of Oyl, said in a statement.
Arthur Hayes, whose Maelstrom family office also participated in the financing, highlighted the growing recognition of the untapped potential within the bitcoin DeFi sector.
“Funds that have historically focused on other chains are now seeing what is possible in bitcoin with Ordinals,” said Arthur Hayes. “Infrastructure winners in 'bitcoin Defi' are yet to be determined; it's a great opportunity.”
In addition to being about to launch its wallet, Oyl introduced Sandshrew, a product that offers developer tools such as bitcoin Core, Esplora, and Ordinals endpoints.
Disclaimer: UTXO Management's parent company, btc Inc., is also the parent company of bitcoin Magazine. UTXO Management operates separately and independently from bitcoin Magazine.
