Ord.io, an explorer of Bitcoin Ordinals, announced on Wednesday the successful closure of a $2 million pre-seed funding round, co-led by Bitcoin Frontier Fund and Sora Ventures.
Participating in the round were Eden Block, Arca, Longhash Ventures, Daxos Capital, Portal Ventures, UTXO Management, Rubik Ventures, VitalTao Capital, Antalpha Ventures, Kommune Fund, Edessa Capital, PetRock Capital, PG Capital, Shake and Bake Productions, Re7 Capital, Balaji Fund, and angel investors. However, Ord.io did not disclose the valuation or the structure of the round.
The platform enables users to search, browse, and interact with Ordinals inscriptions on the Bitcoin blockchain. It plans to utilize the fresh capital to expand support for the upcoming Runes protocol, a new fungible token standard for Bitcoin set to launch at the halving.
Leonidas, co-founder of Ord.io, stated, “We can now not only double down on our existing features but also introduce new services and financial tools that seamlessly integrate into our core product.” The company also aims to bolster its team by hiring more developers to meet growing demand, with over 150K monthly active users.
The Bitcoin Ordinals protocol, initiated by Casey Rodarmor in January 2023, offers a method to store and trade digital content on Bitcoin using satoshis as the smallest units. Ord.io, launched in March 2023, has spearheaded initiatives such as “Startibutes,” “Social Inscriptions,” and “Inscription Number Immutability” within the Ordinals ecosystem.
Runes, another creation by Rodarmor, is a new fungible token standard for Bitcoin scheduled to launch at block height 840,000 during the halving. This innovation aims to enhance Bitcoin’s fungible token capabilities and compete with Ethereum and Solana ecosystems.
Zach Mayer, co-founder of Ord.io, expressed excitement about the surge of innovation on Bitcoin, indicating a shift in developer interest from alternative chains to Bitcoin. Runes promises efficiency over existing token minting processes and compatibility with Bitcoin’s Layer 2 Lightning Network.
As the Bitcoin halving event approaches in less than three days, the industry anticipates significant changes in mining rewards, reinforcing the importance of advancements like Runes in sustaining Bitcoin’s ecosystem.
