BadgerDAO (BADGER) – bringing Bitcoin into the wild frontier of DeFi

You may wonder where Bitcoin (BTC) fits in the world of decentralized finance (DeFi) given that the different decentralized applications (dApps) are built on other blockchains like Ethereum and Solana. Bitcoin after all, despite being the most popular cryptocurrency, has no smart contract functionality. 

This is where BadgerDAO (BADGER) comes in as a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that is building products and infrastructure to accelerate Bitcoin DeFi use across other blockchains. 

BadgerDAO launched in September 2020 with the aim of generating an ecosystem of developers and thought leaders who can find use cases for Bitcoin in DeFi. To accomplish this, BadgerDAO was developed to allow tokenized versions of Bitcoin, such as Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), which could then be used as collateral for various DeFi applications.

What’s with the “badger” though? Badgers are very strong animals, despite their compact size, and are historically linked to Bitcoin after a billboard ad in 2013 suggesting Bitcoin as the “honey badger of money” to reference the animal’s resilience and carefree attitude. The imagery caught on and became a meme afterwards. 

Much like BadgerDAO’s strength and efficiency, BadgerDAO continues to play an important role in bridging Bitcoin into the world of DeFi. 

BadgerDAO offers two main products called Sett Vault and Digg. Metaphorically, Sett is akin to a badger’s “burrow” as it provides a safe place for users to deposit their crypto asset. Sett is essentially an automated DeFi aggregator focused on tokenized Bitcoin, which allows users to deposit crypto assets to earn yield. BadgerDAO’s smart contracts can then use those deposited assets to execute strategies across DeFi protocols to automatically maximize one’s revenue. 

Meanwhile, BadgerDAO’s Digg product is a non-custodial synthetic Bitcoin. To put it simply, Digg is an elastic supply cryptocurrency that is pegged to the value of Bitcoin. This means that when the price of Bitcoin changes, the amount of issued DIGG tokens changes as well such that the balance between the two is maintained. The goal of the DIGG product is to remove the need for centralized parties before using Bitcoin across DeFi protocols. 

BADGER is an ERC-20 token built on the Ethereum blockchain. It is used for governance and rewards within the BadgerDAO ecosystem. Owning the BADGER token allows users to vote on changes to protocols or proposals, including adjustments to smart contracts, marketing efforts, and tokenomics.

BADGER’s circulating supply is currently at 16.92 million out of the 21 million in total supply with a market cap of $42 million as of December 2022. Of the initial supply distributed, BadgerDAO lived up to its decentralized promise, with 10% of allocation going towards the team and 90% towards the Badger community.

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DISCLAIMER: The statements in this article do not constitute financial advice. PDAX does not guarantee the technical and financial integrity of the digital asset and its ecosystem. Any and all trading involving the digital asset is subject to the user’s risk and discretion and must be done after adequate and in-depth research and analysis.