Bitcoin Rollup Citrea Aims to Make BTC a Programmable Asset With ZK Proofs, Raises $14M Series A
Citrea raised $14 million in Series A funding, led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, with contributions from Erik Voorhees and Balaji Srinivasan. The project previously secured $2.7 million in seed funding in February. Citrea utilizes the BitVM computing paradigm to enable Ethereum-style smart contracts on Bitcoin, functioning as an EVM-compatible layer for seamless application deployment. The initiative aims to enhance Bitcoin's blockchain capabilities through zero-knowledge (ZK) technology, allowing secure data transfer without revealing it. Citrea emphasizes the need for greater utility in Bitcoin to avoid becoming obsolete in decentralized finance (DeFi) due to scalability issues. Other projects, like layer-2 BOB, are also exploring solutions to bridge Bitcoin with networks like Ethereum.
