Badger DAO

Badger DAO was founded on the idea that despite Bitcoin being a highly productive collateral asset, there were only limited ways to collateralize $BTC in DeFi, meaning most users were custodying or borrowing against their $BTC via centralized offerings. With the strong adoption of wrapped Bitcoin tokens such as $wBTC and $renBTC on Ethereum from 2018-2020, the founding team saw an opportunitiy to provide a bridge for Bitcoin collateral to automated yield strategies in DeFi, first within the Ethereum ecosystem, then eventually with the vision of also bringing $BTC collateral to other blockchains.

In September 2020, Badger DAO launched its governance token, $BADGER, and distributed it according to an emission schedule via its own staking vaults/yield aggregators, called Setts. Today, Setts offer multiple yield strategies across the DeFi ecosystem, and offer boosted yields for assets locked up for longer periods as well as for accounts that are staked across multiple Setts. Users can bridge from $BTC to $renBTC natively, earn an algorhythmically rebasing $BTC-pegged token, called $DIGG, as well as exchange wrapped $BTC for an interest-bearing Bitcoin token, called $ibBTC.

In March 2021, after growing to over $1 bil. in TVL, the company received a direct investment of $21m from VCs into the Badger DAO treasury to serve as a liquidity backstop and security measure. The new VC partners agreed to participate actively in the DAO's ongoing governance.