Bitlayer, a Bitcoin layer-2 network, has secured an undisclosed amount in a strategic investment from OKX Ventures, the venture capital arm of crypto exchange OKX.

Bitlayer offers a layer-2 network that enables users to build and deploy decentralized applications natively on the Bitcoin blockchain. It leverages BitVM, a novel computational paradigm that verifies off-chain transactions on Bitcoin without requiring changes to the network's consensus rules. This mechanism enables the network to support multiple virtual machines, including Ethereum virtual machine (EVM) and allows developers to migrate existing Ethereum ecosystem applications to the Bitcoin network. 

Analyst QuickTake: The Bitcoin layer-2 space has seen a large influx in investor interest, with companies such as Arch Labs , ZKM , and Botanix Labs raising USD 7 million , USD 5 million , and USD 8.5 million , respectively, within the past few weeks. Notably, this investment is Bitlayer’s second funding round since it raised USD 5 million in late March. The company has been very active in the space, recently partnering Velar , a decentralized exchange, to support the launch of its “Artha” perpetual decentralized exchange (Perp DEX) on the Bitcoin blockchain.