DeFi
Bit Digital to Bridge TradFi and DeFi at EthCC Mixer
Bitcoin miner and AI infrastructure provider Digital bit is preparing to bridge the gap between the worlds of traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi) at this week’s EthCC conference with a networking event in Brussels.
Billed as a “strategic platform to discuss and explore the future of finance,” the “TradFi Mixer Meets DeFi Mix” The event at Bozar Rooftop aims to foster discussion among industry leaders, investors and the Ethereum community on how synergies between TradFi and DeFi can create a more robust financial ecosystem.
“Bit Digital wants to support the Ethereum ecosystem,” said the company’s CEO Sam Tabar. He added that the event will allow Bit Digital to “bring together TradFi and DeFi, explain this unique position we’re in in the financial markets and how we became this accidental bridge.”
Along with networking, the event will feature a panel discussion on “Integrating TradFi and DeFi” with Tabar and Alina Tielnova, Head of Staking at Everstake, Ozan Polat, Partner at Dialectic, moderated by Gianina “Gigi” Skarlett, Partner at MatterblockVC and creator of Rug Radio.
The panel will explore topics such as how Bit Digital is leveraging its position as one of the largest Ethereum holders among Nasdaq-listed companies to enhance its business model through Ethereum staking, and how staking can serve as a bridge between traditional and decentralized finance.
Bit Digital, a publicly traded company, recently used profits from its 40,000 Bitcoin miners to acquire more than $100 million in Ethereum.
“We are staking the Ethereum we acquire,” Tabar said. Decryptadding that “financial markets have no access point to gain exposure to ETH staking. Even ETH ETFs that are coming out cannot stake or provide exposure to ETH staking.”
This means, he explained, that Bit Digital represents a leveraged bet on Ethereum in the same way that Microstrategy represents a leveraged bet on Bitcoin. “We’re using the Microstrategy playbook to become the Microstrategy of Ethereum,” he said.
Tabar predicts that the approval imminent US spot ETFs on Ethereum will have similar impact as spot Bitcoin ETFs earlier this year“There are a lot of institutions trying to get exposure to Ethereum, and staking as a service is not allowed in the United States,” he said. But publicly traded companies can stake for themselves, and “we’re the only publicly traded company that does that,” he added.
With the majority of its miners powered by carbon-free geothermal energy, Bit Digital will also explore the impact of its use of sustainable energy on its operations and the broader DeFi ecosystem, and how it has leveraged Bitcoin mining to support the Ethereum network via staking. Cryptocurrency staking service Everstake will also showcase its integration of DeFi technologies such as liquid staking.
“We want to talk not just to institutions, but to the Ethereum community,” Tabar said Decrypt“I want to make sure developers understand the problem we’re solving for financial markets.”