Quick take:
- The company plans to use the funds to expand the OP_CAT functionality on Bitcoin.
- Taproot Wizards founders want OP_CAT to power the types of apps built on Ethereum and Solana on Bitcoin.
- The fundraising follows the company’s $7.5 million seed round announced in November 2023.
Taproot Wizards, the Bitcoin project founded by Udi Wertheimer and Eric Wall has announced a $30 million funding round led by Standard Crypto, with participation from Cyber Fund, Collider Ventures, Geometry, Masterkey VC, and Newman Capital.
The funds are purposely being raised for the OP_CAT ecosystem to expand the smart contract function on Bitcoin.
OP_CAT is a short form for OPcode Concatenate or OP_CONCAT, which Wertheimer describes as simple scripting for Bitcoin to enable automated and customisable transactions. “We’re really focused on OP_CAT as the future of Bitcoin,” Wertheimer told The Block. “So this will be both for development in-house and talent that will build this stuff in-house at our company and to help build the ecosystem outside of our company too.”
The OP-CAT functionality isn’t new to Bitcoin, having been enabled when its founder, Satoshi Nakamoto, was still active. However, after being disabled due to a lack of use cases, it has become a key element in Bitcoin’s emergence as a dApp network.
OP-CAT is now being used to enable the development of applications similar to those found on Solana and Ethereum, which are also used on Bitcoin.
“The cool thing about OPCAT, because it’s so flexible,” Wertheimer said. “What I expect is that people are going to create tons of new protocols. Instead of having Ordinels and BRC20s, once per quarter, a new protocol like that shows up like the heydays of Ethereum or Solana, where people create new protocols on a daily basis.”
The fundraising follows Taproot Wizard’s $7.5 million seed round announced in November 2023, which Standard Crypto also led with participation from StarkWare and Bitcoin Frontier Fund.
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