The Bitcoin Bitlayer startup announced on Wednesday that it raised $5 million through three rounds of oversubscription for its token issuance. According to the statement, Bitlayer attracted funds from thousands of investors on the crowdfunding platform. The team wrote in the statement: "High demand led to a complete sell-out in a limited time, attracting over 6300 verified investors and exceeding 50% of the subscription goals." It is worth noting that the sale of the original BTR token received over $4.00 million in commitments, and the issuance for the community ended in 28 seconds. Bitlayer calls itself "the first accessible Bitcoin token issuance project in the USA," reminiscent of the initial token issuance era (ICO).

Bitlayer Labs was founded in October 2023 and is building a second layer Bitcoin network based on the Bitcoin virtual machine (BitVM), which aims to expand the programmability of applications while leveraging Bitcoin's security. Bitlayer launched its mainnet V1 in early 2024 and in July of this year released its "minimal trust bridge" BitVM. These new funds will be used to enhance Bitlayer's operational scalability, develop the team, and build the ecosystem. Co-founder Charlie Hu stated that the project has already achieved integration with several blockchains. The team hopes to launch its mainnet V2 later this year.