Quick Take
The Bitcoin Base Camp accelerator program, a collaboration between Outlier Ventures, Plassa Capital, and IOV Labs, aims to foster innovation within the Bitcoin ecosystem. Through tailored support and expertise from industry-leading entities, including venture capital support from Plassa Capital and technical contributions from IOV Labs, the program seeks to empower selected startups in accelerating innovation on the Bitcoin network.
Bitcoin Base Camp Accelerator Program Unveils Startups Aiming to Unlock Untapped Potential of Bitcoin Network
In a bid to harness the largely untapped potential of Bitcoin (BTC) beyond traditional HODLing, Outlier Ventures, in collaboration with Plassa Capital and IOV Labs, is running a Bitcoin accelerator program. The initiative, aimed at fostering innovation within the Bitcoin ecosystem, has selected nine promising startups from around the globe to participate in its inaugural cohort.
Jean-Philippe Jabre, Founder at Plassa Capital, expressed enthusiasm for supporting entrepreneurs driving innovation within the Bitcoin ecosystem, citing Bitcoin’s proven resiliency and recent advancements in scalability and utility. Similarly, Daniel Fogg, CEO at IOV Labs, emphasized the significance of the partnership in supporting the first cohort as they harness Rootstock’s capabilities to build the businesses of the future on Bitcoin.
Francesca Conti, Outlier Ventures’ Bitcoin Base Camp Program Manager, underscored the program’s commitment to capitalizing on Bitcoin’s technical advancements, with a focus on fostering innovation across various domains. With the collaborative support of Plassa Capital and IOV Labs, the program aims to guide the selected startups as they navigate the evolving landscape of Bitcoin-based technologies.
The Bitcoin Base Camp accelerator program
What the program offers to Startups?
- 12-week dedicated support and access to 100+ team and network
- +2 months of additional fundraising support
- Up to $100k stipend as part of the program (terms apply)
- Up to $200k in follow-up investment (terms apply)
In return Startups are expected to provide
- 6% equity and 6% future token supply
- Option to join future equity token rounds, token rounds, and NFT drops at a discount
Despite Bitcoin’s dominance in the cryptocurrency market, with its market capitalization comprising over half of the total, less than 1% of BTC is currently utilized in decentralized applications (dApps) within the Bitcoin ecosystem. This underutilization stems from the prevailing trend of HODLing among BTC holders. However, recent advancements in composability and scalability present newfound opportunities for entrepreneurs to develop BTC-native dApps, thereby offering alternative avenues for BTC holders to leverage their assets.
The selected startups, chosen from a diverse pool of applicants worldwide, are poised to address this opportunity by focusing on accelerating innovation within the Bitcoin network. With a mission to optimize composability, functionality, and scalability on the Bitcoin blockchain, these early-stage ventures aim to unlock the latent potential of the world’s largest decentralized blockchain.
Key to the program’s success is the support provided by industry-leading entities. Plassa Capital, a prominent venture capital firm specializing in early-stage investments across the global crypto ecosystem, joins forces with Outlier Ventures to offer tailored support to the participating startups. Meanwhile, IOV Labs, renowned for its contributions to Rootstock, the first and most secure Bitcoin sidechain, brings its expertise to the table, enabling developers to build products and services atop Bitcoin’s robust infrastructure.
Rootstock, secured by over 60% of Bitcoin’s hash power, serves as a Turing-complete smart contract platform, bridging the gap between Bitcoin and Ethereum’s programmability. Launched in 2018, Rootstock facilitates cheaper, faster, and more scalable transactions, thereby enhancing Bitcoin’s utility and interoperability within the broader blockchain ecosystem.
Startups selected for the Bitcoin Base Camp accelerator program
Among the startups selected for the Bitcoin Base Camp accelerator program are Deeplake, Joltz, Sati, Ordinox, Takenos, Sailing Protocol, Loka Mining, SimpleFi, and Bloom. These ventures represent a diverse array of focus areas, including DeFi solutions, middleware and UX/UI for emerging dApps, asset issuance capabilities, and energy/mining solutions tailored to Bitcoin’s unique Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism.
1. Deep Lake (Morocco): Bitcoin API utilizing Taproot, DLCs, PSBTs, and other Bitcoin primitives for any Bitcoin use case.
Deep Lake is developing APIs within the L1 mainnet of Bitcoin to enable the creation of financial apps directly on the Bitcoin mainnet (such as Bitcoin collateralization, issuance of ordinals/BRC20/other Bitcoin assets, lending, and BRC20 vesting). This allows L2s and sidechains to settle their activities on L1 and provides an agnostic attestation layer, along with an Oracle, to these apps and L2s. Deep Lake is currently onboarding new partners (nodes) to participate in decentralizing their Oracle.
2. Joltz (USA): Enabling companies to attract, engage, and retain users with next-gen bitcoin rewards
Joltz offers an easy-to-use SaaS platform for businesses to integrate bitcoin rewards into their apps, websites, and even physical stores. With its wide range of integrations, APIs, and the Taproot Assets toolkit, any business can create amazing new reward experiences. Companies can incentivize their users with bitcoin, loyalty collectibles/badges, or branded loyalty tokens for actions such as signing up, making a purchase, referring a friend, leaving a review, and more. Web3 loyalty is built on the rock-solid foundation of Bitcoin, with instant reward redemptions powered by the Bitcoin Lightning Network.
3. Sati (Mexico): Empowering nations in need by providing lightning-fast cross-border payments and stable coin transactions through the convenience of WhatsApp.
Sati is revolutionizing financial inclusion, starting in Latin America, by simplifying access to digital currencies. Utilizing its innovative WhatsApp-based platform, users can effortlessly purchase, send, and receive stablecoins and Bitcoin with unprecedented speed, making cross-border transactions more affordable and efficient than ever before—just like sending a WhatsApp message!
4. Ordinox (India): A native cross-chain swap between ERC20 tokens and Bitcoin Inscriptions / Runes based tokens.
Ordinox is a native cross-chain swapping infrastructure focused on bringing DeFi liquidity from the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to Ordinal Inscription-based tokens like BRC20, as well as Runes-based tokens. The core infrastructure enables token holders to earn native yield while facilitating direct, non-custodial swaps between ERC20 tokens and tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain, without the need for wrapping or tunneling.
5. Takenos (Argentina): Takenos fintech app for the 10M LATAM global workers
Takenos is a fintech platform that offers access to financial services for freelancers in Latin America, leveraging web2/3 hybrid technologies. In less than two years, over 10,000 freelancers, contractors, and creators, primarily digital and global workers, have utilized Takenos to access the global financial system, transacting over $10 million.
6. Sailing Protocol (USA): Global and composable stocks via tokenization, making US-based investments accessible in underdeveloped economies.
Sailing claims to be the first company to tackle the significant limitations of the US Stock Market, offering features such as instant international settlement, atomic reconciliation, 24/7 access, and semi-permissionless composability. These advancements are made possible through Sailing’s Wallet Identity and Equity Pegs technologies. The Sailing Protocol brings stocks onto the blockchain, enabling not only consumers but also developers to incorporate these tokens into their decentralized applications (dApps).
7. Loka Mining (Indonesia): Loka enables investors to access Bitcoin at lower than market price by purchasing contracts of future mining rewards directly from miners
Loka is building a decentralized Bitcoin mining pool and a peer-to-peer protocol that connects Bitcoin miners, liquidity providers, and investors in a trustless and non-custodial manner. Investors can access Bitcoin at prices lower than the market by purchasing contracts for future mining rewards, while Bitcoin miners receive early returns on their investments and hedge against price volatility risks. Each contract is tokenized and fully collateralized on-chain at a 1:1 value with BTC, ensuring immediate liquidity in the secondary market and mitigating centralized party risks.
8. SimpleFi (Argentina): SimpleFi is a user-friendly crypto payment interface for merchants and users in LatAm to transact at low fees.
SimpleFi simplifies cryptocurrency payments, making them both easy and practical. It achieves this by creating tailored checkout experiences that are optimized and customized for each merchant, thereby expanding their customer base while keeping fees low..
9. Bloom (UK): Bloom is a secure wallet hub for trading tokens and NFTs, discovering new dApps, and optimising your DeFi investments.
Bloom brings clarity to the complexity of crypto with a beautifully designed Web3 wallet hub, eliminating the need for cumbersome Chrome extensions. Positioned for the next wave of users, its intuitive platform seamlessly integrates token and NFT trading, socially-driven dApp discovery, and DeFi portfolio optimization. It offers a secure, all-in-one environment tailored to user’s individual journey in Web3.
Overall, the Bitcoin Base Camp accelerator program marks a significant milestone in unlocking the untapped potential of Bitcoin, fostering collaboration among key industry players, and paving the way for a new wave of innovation and utility powered by Bitcoin network.