Bitcoin Lightning company River raises $35M amid ‘new wave of institutional adoption’

The tide mightiness person gone retired connected Bitcoin Ordinals, but there’s a beardown undercurrent of investments successful Bitcoin-only companies. River, a U.S.-based Bitcoin (BTC) exertion and fiscal services institution is the latest to marque a splash. 

River announced a $35 cardinal Series B equity backing round despite the carnivore market. Kingsway Capital led the round, with notable contributions including Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel, Cygni, Goldcrest and Valor Equity Partners.

According to Alex Leishman, the CEO of River, the caller question of Bitcoin involvement is “largely driven by concern and organization adoption.” He added:

"It’s not fueled by hype. This year’s slope failures and bailouts person been a wake-up call, revealing the cracks of the accepted fiscal strategy and reminding america wherefore Bitcoin is truthful important–it’s a unafraid way to a stronger and much transparent planetary economy."

The San Francisco-based institution manages 1 of the largest Bitcoin lightning nodes, enabling payments and managing liquidity for the Bitcoin Lightning Network.

Top Bitcoin Lightning nodes by capacity. Source: River.com

The River Lightning API enables companies to easy integrate with the Lightning Network. The work has already taken complaint of 1 of the cardinal players successful the Bitcoin payments landscape; El Salvador's Chivo wallet usage River for near-instant and near-free Bitcoin payments.

River was an aboriginal adopter of the Lightning Network, akin to planetary crypto exchanges including Bitfinex and Kraken.

A snapshot of the River lightning node's capableness and connected channels. Source: Mempool.space

Moreover, the world’s largest exchanges, Coinbase and Binance, whitethorn soon follow Lightning arsenic the satellite dilatory warms up to the low-fee, high-throughput payments network. At the Advancing Bitcoin conference successful London, River CEO Leishm told Cointelegraph:

"I inactive deliberation that we are precise early. Yeah, there’s a batch of chill things happening. We’re gathering this truly astonishing instauration protocol-wise."

He said that it’s important to spot much radical “ moving backward from the existent quality problems arsenic well. We request much of that.” In airy of the surge successful mainchain transaction fees owed to meme coin mania, much and much exchanges and crypto companies whitethorn crook to the Lightning Network arsenic a solution.

Related: The authorities of the Bitcoin Lightning Network successful 2023

River joins a burgeoning database of Bitcoin companies making raises during the carnivore market. Custody work supplier Unchained Capital precocious raised $60 million, portion El Salvador’s acquisition programme received a flood of investments from Bitcoin advocates astir the world.