Bitcoin scaling protocol QED raises $6 million seed round at '9-figure' valuation

QED, a Bitcoin BTC -2.91% scaling protocol, has raised $6 million in a seed funding round from Blockchain Capital as the sole investor.

QED began raising funds for the round in March and closed it in April, founder Carter Feldman told The Block. The round was structured as a simple agreement for future equity (SAFE) plus token warrants, Feldman said, adding that it brought QED's valuation to "nine figures," meaning at least $100 million. He declined to provide a specific figure.

The seed round brings QED's total funding to $10.6 million. It previously raised $3.25 million in pre-seed funding from Arrington Capital, StarkWare, Draper Dragon and others, and $1.35 million in an angel round from Animoca Brands-supported Sparkle Ventures and others.

What is QED?

QED is a Bitcoin scaling protocol that focuses on zero-knowledge proof verification technology.

"We have the world's best ZK tech," Feldman claimed. "QED enables you to build things that simply weren't possible before on Bitcoin, like decentralized exchanges, DeFi and other applications that would benefit from the security and decentralization of Bitcoin."

Feldman said QED's technology is compatible with Bitcoin Core by harnessing the power of zero-knowledge proofs and Taproot , an upgrade that brought smart contracts to the Bitcoin blockchain.

The QED protocol claims to process over 150,000 transactions per second. It aims to create an ecosystem of "hyper-scalable" web3 applications such as order book exchanges and web2-scale gaming and other applications.

"QED brings the power of ZK to Bitcoin in a way that is both as trust minimized as possible and extremely cost-efficient, unlocking Bitcoin-native smart contracts and scaling solutions that have long been considered unviable," Aleks Larsen, general partner at Blockchain Capital, said in a statement.

Feldman said QED doesn't see other Bitcoin scaling protocols as its competitors, saying they are protected only by a "trust me and my friends" multi-sig security model that users find unappealing. He added that QED sees Ethereum ETH -3.077% and Ethereum Layer 2 networks as its core competitors, as they have "a competing security model that has proved very compelling for a lot of builders and users."

QED protocol and its token launch schedule

Feldman said that a testnet of the QED protocol is expected to launch in the next 3-4 months. The mainnet will launch after QED has a community consensus on the launch, he added.

QED would also launch its native token along with the mainnet. The token will be launched to ensure "our ecosystem of proof miners is properly motivated to run high-availability, high-performance infrastructure," Feldman said. "There needs to be a protocol token whose value is tied to proof-miner performance."

QED is headquartered in Hong Kong and employs over 30 people full-time in the Greater Bay Area, Feldman said, adding that the project plans to open its first U.S. office soon, likely in Texas. Feldman is also looking to hire people for marketing and engineering functions.

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