Hello, Interlay community!
It was a great pleasure to catch up with all of you during the Community call alongside Co-founder Alexei Zamyatin.
Did you miss the community call?
Don’t worry we got you. In this blog post, we’ll cover everything that was discussed during the community call.
Interlay Updates
More Liquidity 🌊
Following the passing of Ref. 94 on Interlay, Native USDC is now available on the Interlay network boosting liquidity & collateral options on the network.
USDC on Interlay unlocks a lot of new opportunities:
- Users can now pay transaction fees on Interlay with USDC via the USDC/INTR pool.
- Users can create lend/borrow and enable USDC as collateral for borrowing.
- Add USDC & qUSDC (tokenized lending position of USDC) as a collateral asset for vaults, operating the iBTC bridge
Interlay TVL on the rise 💥
The Total Value Locked (TVL) on Interlay has been on the rise as a clear indication of the rising adoption of Bitcoin DeFi with a TVL ATH of 21.66 Million USD last month for Interlay.
The TVL currently stands at 19.00 Million USD (excluding borrows) which is 3x the TVL since the start of the year.
You can track the TVL on Interlay here: https://defillama.com/chain/Interlay
Interlay: The BTC one-stop shop for Polkadot
Interlay continues to operate as the main BTC bridge & Bitcoin DeFi Hub — a true one-stop shop for Bitcoin in the Polkadot ecosystem. The Interlay Bridge & DeFi Hub has stood the test of time & continues to be the most secure bridge for Bitcoin DeFi.
The bridge has handled 711 BTC in bridge volume and currently provides 81.7 BTC to the Polkadot ecosystem. You can track the stats on the Interlay dashboard https://app.interlay.io/dashboard
Technical Roadmap
The number 1 priority for Interlay shall always be to ensure the secure operation of the BTC bridge & the DeFi Hub. We will always maintain regular code maintenance and upgrades for the Interlay infrastructure.
We also plan to work on the following important features to ensure Interlay’s growth:
- Collator decentralization
- Adding new lending markets, continuing to grow as Polkadot’s no 1 lending market.
- Adding new Vault collaterals to increase diversity and allow for more BTC to flow into Polkadot’s ecosystem.
Additionally, we’re researching how we can further improve the Vault model for the Interlay bridge via collateral delegation and shared multisig Vaults.
Interlay BD initiatives
The team has been engaging in plans to provide iBTC as an alternative asset to diversify the DOT treasury. The HydraDX treasury currently holds 27 iBTC as part of treasury diversification and we see it as one of the major use cases for iBTC.
We are also exploring the option for a Parachain Revenue share to the Interlay treasury. For eg. we can propose to Hydra and other chains to share revenue generated via iBTC for a continuous revenue stream for the Interlay treasury. There needs to be a balance found between growth and sustainability here, something to discuss with the Hydra community.
Last but not leats, we believe that the DOT treasury should subsidize Vaults as an incentive to get more iBTC into Polkadot (as part of broader DeFi liquidity campaigns). While early efforts in this direction have been met with resistance in some DOT governance circles, we are looking to find a mutual solution.
Interlay: A decentralized future
Interlay has one of the largest treasuries in the DOT ecosystem with close to 408.95m of INTR valued at $21M (at CMP). The interlay foundation holds approx. $4m of INTR allocated towards ecosystem growth.
The goal of the treasury should be to sustainably fund ecosystem development and allow more teams to contribute to the growth of Interlay.
To advance this goal we have started working with members of the ChaosDAO collective for support Interlay governance.
We are a founding member of Velocity Labs and exploring various solutions to improve infrastructure & BD support for the ecosystem.
We welcome Wallets & other partner projects to build on top of Interlay APIs (e.g. 1-click strategies, once XCM UX is improved), supported by the treasury.
Kintsugi will continue on the Kusama chain & remain the canary network of Interlay.
BOB: A new Bitcoin L2 revolution
BOB (”Build on Bitcoin”) is a first-of-its-kind hybrid L2 network that connects Bitcoin and Ethereum. BOB empowers everyone to build and innovate on Bitcoin today by combining EVM smart contracts with tooling for Bitcoin-native protocols such as Ordinals & BRC native assets.
Merging the security of Ethereum rollup technology with Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work makes BOB the most secure and reliable layer 2 network.
The rollup will have low fees, fast tx times & improved UI UX features like account abstraction, meta transactions, and social sign-ins. It will efficiently funnel liquidity from the two leading web3 economies, Ethereum & Bitcoin.
Our mission is to create a Bitcoin rollup ecosystem to power innovation and experimentation without relying on Bitcoin forks. The BOB rollup will go live on the mainnet around the upcoming Bitcoin Halving with major projects slated to deploy on BOB.
You can read more about BOB here https://docs.gobob.xyz/docs/learn/
BOB and Interlay
BOB and Interlay are two sides of a coin: both envision more use cases for Bitcoin, but take very different approaches to achieve this goal.
BOB is a hybrid L2 between Bitcoin and Ethereum that aims to combine security and liquidity of the two largest web3 ecosystems. As an EVM platform for DApps, BOB’s main goal is to provide infrastructure and ensure that any project that deploy on BOB are successful. As such, BOB works closely with Ordinals marketplaces and collections, existing Bitcoin and Ethereum DeFi projects, gaming teams, etc. BOB itself is not an app, it is a platform where other apps from both Bitcoin and Ethereum ecosystems deploy to unlock new use cases. BOB will also feature multiple BTC bridges, driven by demand of ecosystem projects, including tBTC, wBTC, and other versions.
Interlay is a trust-minimized BTC bridge for the Polkadot ecosystem, with a DEX and lending marketplace built on top. Interlay’s main users are Polkadot DeFi users and parachains like Hydra and Bifrost, and hopefully soon the DOT treasury. Interlay is built with Substrate (now called “Polkadot-SDK”) and does not yet have connections to ecosystems outside of Polkadot (pending Snowbridge).
The different design and product focus, as well as positioning, mean that BOB is developed as a separate project from Interlay.
BOB and Interlay Ecosystem Alignment
Given the similar vision of BOB and Interlay, and the importance of a strong and thriving community to succeed in the Bitcoin Renaissance, BOB invites the Interlay community into its new, fast growing ecosystem, as OGs who have followed the vision of unleashing Bitcoin’s full potential for a long time.
Interlay & Kintsugi community members will:
- Receive early access/referral codes and the chance to be the first to onboard onto BOB and upcoming launch campaigns.
- An allocation of BOB tokens
Please note that snapshots have already been taken.
The final details of the allocation in terms of criteria, accounting for long term supporters and active users, will be shared in due time in the upcoming months. Please note that there is no ongoing BOB airdrop at this time. All information will be released from the official Interlay and BOB handles only. Please do not click on any unofficial links claiming to be related to any BOB airdrop and beware of scammers.
INTR & iBTC on BOB
We are exploring ways to bring INTR & iBTC to BOB. The two options available in the (hopefully new) future are:
- Wormhole via Moonbeam. This introduces some additional security assumptions and UX challenges due to routing of assets. Wormhole also does not yet support INTR and iBTC.
- Snowbridge. We are waiting for final confirmation on the timelines. There are some challenges around UX (no user interface yet), and additional security assumptions (requires code change to Interlay which might introduce dependencies; also, a very new system with no prior battle-testing).
We are closely following the developments around both options and will share updates as soon as we hear them.
Interlay: The next steps
Recently we have seen a lot of confusion among newcomers about the differences between BOB and Interlay, EVM vs Substrate, Ethereum vs Polkadot, and a lot of the Interlay specific governance, XCM and product discussions.
In light of this, BOB will receive its own Discord server focusing on partner teams deploying their products on to BOB. The Interlay Discord server and Telegram groups will remain focused on Interlay’s growth & development. Interlay will continue regular community calls, monthly ecosystem updates & other marketing efforts as we grow the dedicated Interlay marketing and community team (more updates soon!).
TLDR: We’re setting the stage for the Bitcoin L2 revolution with BOB while solidifying Interlay’s position as the Bitcoin DeFi powerhouse in the Polkadot ecosystem.
There will be plenty of opportunities for Interlay/Kintsugi community members to also get involved in the new BOB community.
Together, Let’s make the Bitcoin mission come true!
- The Interlay team
About Interlay
Interlay is the one-stop shop for all things Bitcoin finance. BTC trading, lending, staking, and a way to deploy into other DeFi products. Trustless bridge at the core, AMM and money market on top, wrapped in a simple one-click interface with on/off-ramps and multi-chain support.
Follow both Interlay and Kintsugi on Twitter, join our Telegram, and hop in our Discord to keep up to date with daily updates from the team.
