We contributed to Lido DAO, P2P.org, =nil; Foundation, DRPC, Neutron and invested into 150+ projects
While Bitcoin is mainstream, serving as the cornerstone for the blockchain space at large, it continues to lack the execution essential for native applications. Many proposed fixes - including drivechains, stakechains, sidechains and of course the BitVM - exist, but navigating Bitcoin governance and engineering safe solutions remains daunting.
Critically, to foster greater adoption and steward its security, Bitcoin’s needs some form of native programmability to develop. Today, we are thrilled to announce our investment in Alpen Labs alongside our friends at DBA. Alpen is a team uniquely suited to future-proof crypto’s landmark network by finally enabling secure execution on Bitcoin.
Alpen’s story begins in Nepal, a country with 30 million residents - all of whom are barred from buying, owning, or using Bitcoin (you may have noticed Alpen and Nepal are anagrams of each other).
After each co-founder subsequently attended MIT - which typically accepts just one Nepalese native a year - the founders stayed in touch, inextricably linked by both their country of origin and drive a global impact through technology.
Collectively Alpen’s founders have spent time across the tech frontier, working on difficult problems in robotics, machine learning, rocketry, and cryptography at industry giants like MIT’s Media Lab, Microsoft, Palantir, SpaceX, and Blockstream among others.
But upon reading 2022’s infamous Validity Rollups on Bitcoin, Alpen’s founders decided to drop everything and work to make Bitcoin capable of hosting powerful smart contracts.
When we first discussed it, most of our team had not thought of Bitcoin and programmability together in nearly a decade. While Bitcoin was and is something fundamental - a digital commodity reminiscent of gold but with better guarantees on ownership - expressivity tied to Bitcoin felt decades away.
Determination remains one of the best gauges for success in startups. While igniting execution on Bitcoin involves difficult engineering hurdles and barometering a group’s true level of determination is hard, our collective outlook on the possibilities on Bitcoin U-turned after meeting Sims, Abishkar, Chandan, Pramod and founding cryptographer Liam.
Beyond its founding team, Alpen has built an impressive track record, pushing the frontier of what’s possible with the BitVM as well as recruiting top talent including David Seroy, John Light, and Aaron Feickert. This deep bench represents the best from Google, Nethermind, Stanford, and Monero, among other companies.
We believe with Alpen, Bitcoin will enter a new definitive era in which it thrives not only because of its network structure and sovereign scarcity but also due to the one-of-kind apps it hosts.
Alpen’s first product is Strata, a zero-knowledge-powered rollup that extends Bitcoin’s distinct money properties onto a trust-minimized EVM. With Strata, developers finally can tap into bitcoin’s scarcity, while Bitcoin itself gains all the execution and scaling of rival networks. To get started with Strata check out the Devnet here (look for mainnet this year). Current openings are also available here.