Alpen Labs, a Bitcoin layer-2 developer, has secured $10.6 million in funding with the aim of scaling the blockchain of the world’s largest cryptocurrency using zero-knowledge proofs.
Exiting stealth mode after the funding round, Alpen Labs has spent the past year developing Bitcoin rollup infrastructure to introduce smart contract functionality to the network.
The $10.6 million seed round was led by Ribbit Capital and included investments from Castle Island Ventures, Robot Ventures, and Axiom Capital.
Zero-knowledge technology enables secure and swift data transfer between parties and is instrumental in scaling blockchains through rollups. Rollups operate alongside a blockchain, aggregating transactions to settle them on the main network, thereby potentially enhancing speed and reducing costs.
Historically, such advancements have been scarce within the Bitcoin ecosystem, as core developers have prioritised network simplicity to uphold security. Nonetheless, the emergence of the Ordinals protocol in early 2023 and the subsequent release of Robin Linus’s BitVM underscore the growing interest in network development aimed at enhancing Bitcoin’s utility.