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Lightning Speed: Accelerators And Incubators Focus Their Sights On Bitcoin

You know what incubators and accelerators mean: interest. They say that bear markets are for builders, and the bitcoin ecosystem seems to be getting ready to work. One of the main catalysts is the success of the Lightning Network. The little engine that could went from being constantly mocked to being a key element in the El Salvador story. Nowadays, the Lightning Network is the bitcoin ecosystem’s absolute star and one of the reasons money is pouring in.

The three accelerators and incubators that this article will consider couldn’t be more different from each other, but they share the bitcoin-only ethos. And an unhealthy interest in the Lightning Network. From a Jack Dorsey-funded initiative, to a corporate ultra-deluxe opportunity, to a bunch of technically minded individuals that opened their doors in the name of bitcoin. Pick your poison, there’s probably an accelerator for you here. 

The TBD Open-Source Incubation Program

The Jack Dorsey-funded organization that’s working in the decentralized bitcoin exchange TBDex can probably help your bitcoin project. They recently announced the TBD Open Source Incubation Program, but there’s not much practical info on it yet. “TBD Incubation projects are managed by community contributors. They advance the decentralized web and accelerate development and adoption of the Web5 platform,” the company wrote.

They did specify that the program was focused on Open-Source projects and said that TBD will “soon be announcing our first Incubation project!” The announcement also promised that “when projects reach maturity, they may apply to be promoted out of Incubation into a central project,” so the TBD program might turn into an accelerator over time.

BTCUSD price chart for 11/03/2022 - TradingView

BTC price chart for 11/03/2022 on Bitstamp | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com

The Wolf Startup Accelerators Focused Exclusively On Lightning

This is the corporate one. This is the deluxe one. It’s run by “Stone Ridge, owner of an alternatives asset manager that has raised more than $40B since inception and parent of bitcoin company NYDIG.” Among other things, they offer, “transportation to NYC and lodging for the duration of the 8-week program are included from anywhere in the world.” The program is exclusively focused on the Lightning Network.“Wolf accepts applications from individual founders and small teams at the pre-seed idea stage up through those ready for a Series A financing round.”

The investments are also deluxe, selected developers get a $250K guaranteed seed funding, so they can focus all of their attention on the project. Also, “at the end of each program, one team will be chosen by a panel of judges to receive an additional $500K in funding.” That, plus all the knowledge you and your team can collect in those eight weeks.

The Pleb Lab Co-Working/ Accelerators

In contrast, Pleb Lab is “a co-working / accelerator in Austin, Texas at the heart of the financial district. We support outstanding projects and teams in several ways.” They are bitcoin-only, with a focus on “the Lightning Network – an essential step towards decentralized finance.” Their other focus is free and open-source development, “the FOSS ethos is at the center of what we do here at Pleb Lab.”

What does the Pleb Lab accelerator do, exactly?

  • “Working directly with Bitcoin & Lightning startups”

  • “Granting workspace among other brilliant Bitcoin developers at Pleb Lab”

  • “Providing startup advisory and mentoring”

  • “Providing business development, marketing and strategy”

The Austin bitcoin scene is growing by the minute, and Pleb Lab is right there in the middle of it. Apparently, one of its best characteristics is to be in the same room with other bitcoin developers trying to solve similar problems to yours. As you might imagine, they all help each other. This one is not a competition and there are no obvious prizes.

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Lightning Speed: Taro Is Here! Lightning Labs Releases The Code’s Alpha Version

The controversial Taro protocol is ready for testing. The initial version of the code is available on GitHub, and it enables “developers to mint, send, and receive assets on the bitcoin blockchain.” Notice that the company isn’t talking about the Lightning Network yet. In a blog post announcing the Taro launch, Lightning Labs promised, “once the on-chain functionality is complete, we’ll work towards integrating the Taro protocol into lnd, bringing Taro assets to the Lightning Network.”

This is the first step of many and it’s mainly aimed at developers. According to Lightning Labs, “this initial release is only designed for testnet usage as a way for developers to start using the code.” That means, no real value is flowing through Taro at the moment. But… what is Taro anyway? The blog post defines it as a “Taproot-powered protocol for issuing assets that can be transferred over bitcoin and in the future, the Lightning Network for instant, high volume, low fee transactions.”

Taro Will Enable Stablecoins To Travel Through Lightning

This is a multifaceted protocol that allows many things, but the feature everyone is excited about is the fusion of stablecoins with the Lightning Network. It’s controversial because you have to trust the issuer of stablecoins, which means they come with counterparty risk. Bitcoin doesn’t have that problem. In any case, in the subsection titled “The First Step Towards Bitcoinizing the Dollar,” Lightning Labs tries to convince us that stablecoins over Lightning are a good idea:

“With Taro and the incredible developer community, we can build a world where users have USD-denominated balances and BTC-denominated balances (or other assets) in the same wallet, trivially sending value across the Lightning Network just as they do today. This leap forward will accelerate the path to bringing bitcoin to billions.”

If that sounds too much like Galoy’s stablesats, it’s because both implementations are trying to solve the same problem. They use vastly different methods, though. And place the counterparty risk in different places.

BTC price chart for 09/29/2022 on Fx | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
How Does Taro Work And What Else Does It Do?

Don’t worry, these brand-new protocols are hard to master, or even understand. Luckily for us, Lightning Labs gave us a technical-but-easy-to-follow explanation as a refresher:

“Taro assets are embedded within existing bitcoin outputs, or UTXOs. Think of these assets as “UTXOs within a UTXO.” A developer mints a new Taro asset by making an on-chain transaction that commits to special metadata in a Tapoot output. When minting a new asset, the Taro daemon will generate the relevant witness data, assign the asset to a private key held by the minter, and broadcast the newly created bitcoin UTXO to the bitcoin network. This new outpoint becomes the genesis point of the newly minted asset, acting as its unique identifier.” 

When Lightning Speed first tackled the Taro subject, we explained what a Taro asset can be:

“What is a “Taro asset”? Whatever you want, your BTC can be “converted into different assets such as USD to EUR or USD to BTC.” Or, as Bitrefil’s Sergej Kotliar puts it, “Pay in currency of sender’s choice, receive in currency of recipient’s choice. This means that every wallet can now have native Strike-type “USD balance” functionality for example. With no need to trust the wallet, the only trust lies in the issuer of the token.”

How To Get Started With The Novel Protocol

As previously stated, this Alpha release is mainly for developers. If you’re one or know of one, here are the protocol’s coordinates: 

“To get started exploring Taro, download the daemon, check out the API documentation, and read the getting started guide. And for a more extensive explanation on how Taro works, take a deep dive into the Taro BIPs and our documentation.”

Have a blast, developers. And please report back to us with your findings.

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