Galaxy and Fireblocks will run nodes on the Bitcoin Layer 2 network Botanix.

PANews reported on June 5 that, according to Coindesk, 16 institutions, including Galaxy, a digital asset financial services company under Mike Novogratz, and Fireblocks, a crypto custodian, will become node operators of Botanix, a Bitcoin Layer2 network. These carriers are ready for onboarding and will be operational when the Botanix mainnet goes live later in the quarter. Botanix Labs aims to ensure the decentralized nature of the network from the very beginning by forming a consortium of nodes made up of multiple entities. In the future, the network plans to transition to a dynamic federation model, which will eventually enable any user in the world to run a Botanix node. Other members of the alliance include blockchain development platform Alchemy, Bitcoin mining pool Antpool, and hedge fund UTXO Management. The Botanix testnet Aragog has launched a series of DeFi basic tools, including the BTC-collateralized stablecoin Palladium, the decentralized exchange Bitzy, and the lending market Spindle. Its protocol Spiderchain is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), theoretically allowing Ethereum smart contracts and DeFi applications to run directly on the Bitcoin network.