BadgerDAO Founder Pitches Corn, an Ethereum Layer-2 Using Bitcoin as Gas

As the Bitcoin faithful continue to try to bring decentralized finance to the number one cryptocurrency by market capitalization, developers are continuing to build layer-2 solutions that give Bitcoin utility via Ethereum. One of these projects is Corn, a new layer-2 solution from BadgerDAO founder Chris Spadafora.

Corn will use Bitcoin for its gas fees, and Spadafora said it will ultimately bring real life to the “pet rock” that is BTC.

In cryptocurrency, “gas” is the colloquial name for the fee required to perform transactions or execute smart contracts on a blockchain network like Ethereum and Solana. A layer-2 solution refers to a blockchain network built on top of another, like Arbitrum on Ethereum and the Lightning Network on Bitcoin.

“Our goal is really to make it easy for people to use [Bitcoin], because as much as there's a lot of great innovation happening on Bitcoin—which we have a lot of excitement around—there just really isn't anything to do with Bitcoin today,” Spadafora told Decrypt. “It's still a pet rock, it's in this cage, and we need to get it out of there.”

To make this possible, Spadafora said Corn developed BTCN, a hybrid tokenized Bitcoin, which Corn said is backed 1:1 by native Bitcoin. The idea behind BTCN is to offer Bitcoin holders multiple options for tokenizing their BTC so they can use it in decentralized ecosystems like Ethereum.

He said BTCN is different from other versions of wrapped Bitcoin that either use centralized intermediaries or decentralized protocols. BTCN, he said, will provide a choice for Bitcoin holders regarding how their assets are custodied and used in various applications.

Devs to Launch New DeFi and Smart Contract Solution on Bitcoin

The dream of decentralized finance (DeFi) on the Bitcoin blockchain has eluded developers for nearly as long as it the dominant blockchain has existed. But a crucial component of DeFi, smart contracts, are not native to the Bitcoin blockchain. A group of developers, however, is set to launch the OP_NET testnet on Wednesday, which they say will bring the programmable feature to Bitcoin. OP_NET takes advantage of the Tapscript component of the Bitcoin Taproot upgrade, which also made Ordinals and...

“By having to move into Ethereum or other assets, you have to give up the exposure to Bitcoin,” Spadafora said. “I think there's an inherent interest in keeping exposure to Bitcoin, but playing in the DeFi ecosystem—and not only being able to put it to work but experiment with new, fun things.

“That's most certainly what we've seen in the last couple of iterations of what's come out of the DeFi world, and that's going to continue moving forward,” he added.

The project announced a $6.7 million fundraise led by Polychain Capital on Tuesday to facilitate the launch of the Corn ecosystem.

Others joining Polychain Capital in the investment round include Binance Labs, Framework Ventures, and others including Polygon’s Sandeep Nailwal, and Taproot Wizards’ Udi Wertheimer.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.

Editor's note: This story was updated after publication to remove a mention of OKX Ventures. The Corn team said that it ultimately removed the company from the announcement because OKX Ventures is not an investor.