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

The tide may have turned out on bitcoin ordinals, but there is a strong undercurrent of investment in bitcoin-only companies. River, a US-based bitcoin (BTC) technology and financial services company is the latest to make a splash.

Despite the bear market, River announces $35 million Series B equity funding round. Kingsway Capital led the round, with notable contributions including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Cygni, Goldcrest and Valor Equity Partners.

According to River CEO Alex Leishman, the new wave of bitcoin interest is “driven by large-scale trading and institutional adoption.” He added:

“This is not driven by hype. This year’s bank failures and bailouts are a wake-up call, revealing the cracks of the traditional financial system and reminding us why bitcoin is so important – it is a stronger and more transparent A safe route to the global economy.”

San Francisco-based company manages one of the Largest Bitcoin Lightning Nodes, enabling payments and managing liquidity for the Bitcoin Lightning Network.

The River Lightning API enables companies to easily integrate with the Lightning Network. The service has already taken the charge of one of the major players in the bitcoin payments landscape; El Salvador’s Chivo Wallet uses River for near-instant and near-free bitcoin payments.

Similar to global crypto exchanges including Bitfinex and Kraken, River was an early adopter of the Lightning Network.

Furthermore, the world’s largest exchanges, Coinbase and Binance, may soon adopt Lightning as the world slowly moves towards a low-fee, high-throughput payment network. At the Advancing Bitcoin conference in London, River CEO Leesham told Cointelegraph:

“I still think we’re too early. Yeah, a lot of good stuff happening. We’re really building this amazing foundation protocol-wise.”

He added that it is important to see more people “working backwards from real human problems as well. We need more of this. In light of the increase in main chain transaction fees due to the meme coin craze, more More exchanges and crypto companies may turn to the Lightning Network as a solution.

Connected: The State of the Bitcoin Lightning Network in 2023

River joins a growing list of bitcoin companies during the bear market. Custodial service provider Unchained Capital recently raised $60 million, while an education program in El Salvador saw a flood of investment from bitcoin advocates around the world.