Quick take:
- The fundraising also attracted participation from Antalpha and Mantle.
- The bitcoin-based protocol, formerly known as Ignition, aims to unlock institutional yield opportunities from the largest yet least utilised asset in DeFi.
- The announcement comes amid a ramp-up in institutional adoption of BTC through strategic Bitcoin treasuries and spot ETFs.
Function, formerly Ignifition, a decentralised finance protocol on Bitcoin, has raised $10 million in a seed round led by Galaxy Digital, with participation from Antalpha and Mantle.
The company offers fBTC, a yield-generating token that allows institutions and corporate treasuries to deploy bitcoin while maintaining full control of their assets. Function plans to use the capital to scale the institutional adoption of FBTC as it seeks to unlock institutional yield opportunities from the largest yet least utilised digital asset in the market.
And with Mike Novogratz Galaxy not only investing, but also joining as a key contributor, Function plans have gotten up to a good start. The announcement also comes amid a ramp-up in institutional adoption of Bitcoin, through strategic Bitcoin treasuries, inspired by Trump’s call to establish a National Bitcoin Reserve.
According to the report by CoinDesk, some of the activities that Galaxy will be undertaking include liquidity provisioning, governance and risk framework design, and strategic oversight.
“By 2026, treating bitcoin as a passive treasury asset may no longer be enough. The new standard will be actively earning yield,” Thomas Chen, CEO of Function, said in an email.
“We’re evolving from wrapped assets to functional infrastructure that’s programmable and institutional-grade to transform bitcoin into a productive asset class. Sophisticated allocators will demand their bitcoin work as hard as their cash. Those slow to adapt will underperform; forward-looking firms will win the next era of bitcoin yield.” Chen added.
FBTC is already integrated with over 8 major protocols and over 25 leading decentralised applications (dApps) including Ethereum, Babylon, Aave and Mantle.
Jason Urban, Global Head of Trading at Galaxy, expressed excitement about the partnership, in a statement, saying: “I believe Function represents the next evolution in Bitcoin’s journey toward becoming a productive financial asset. We’re excited to contribute to the infrastructure that Function is building to establish Bitcoin as a capital-efficient reserve asset for global markets.”
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