Portal to Bitcoin has successfully raised $25 million in funding while launching an HTLC-based atomic OTC trading desk, designed to facilitate trustless cross-chain settlements for large trades.

As per a recent announcement shared with Cointelegraph, this funding round, spearheaded by JTSA Global, follows previous investments from Coinbase Ventures, OKX Ventures, Arrington Capital, and others.

In addition to the funding, Portal has introduced its Atomic OTC desk, promising “instant, trustless cross-chain settlement of large block trades.” This service is similar to the crosschain atomic swaps provided by THORChain, Chainflip, and other Bitcoin-focused platforms. However, Portal to Bitcoin stands out by targeting the Bitcoin-anchored crosschain OTC market for institutional traders and wealthy investors, leveraging a unique tech stack.

“Portal provides the infrastructure to make Bitcoin the settlement layer for global asset markets without the need for bridges, custodians, or wrapped assets,” remarked Chandra Duggirala, the company’s founder and CEO.

Portal to Bitcoin team members Portal to Bitcoin team members, from left to right: co-founder and chief technology officer Manoj Duggirala, founder and CEO Chandra Duggirala, and co-founder George Burke. Source: Portal to Bitcoin

Only Native Assets, Without Custody

Portal to Bitcoin utilizes Hashed Timelock Contracts (HTLCs) across various blockchains along with Bitcoin Taproot contracts to convert native BTC into native assets in a non-custodial manner, aiming to minimize trust requirements. HTLCs ensure that either both parties complete the exchange or both recover their assets.

Their system employs BitScaler, a layer-3 design akin to the Lightning Network, which is built on top of Bitcoin and utilizes Taproot and policy templates. It establishes connections similar to Lightning channels, introducing a hub-and-spoke model that enhances the process.

This design allows users to only interact with native assets on their respective chains without trusting wrapped tokens that come with federations. Additionally, if any swap fails mid-process or HTLCs expire, funds can be reclaimed.

Duggirala added that while atomic swaps do exist, systems like THORChain and Chainflip rely on vaults that take custody of funds from both sides, which are managed by Validators. In contrast, Portal’s approach mitigates risks associated with rogue validators potentially seizing pooled funds.

The security framework of Portal includes a Notary Chain built on the Ethereum Virtual Machine on Cosmos (EVMOS), overseen by portal guardians. This network initially started with 42 validator slots, now reportedly expanded to 150. Validator selection is meant to be permissionless, though currently, they are known entities for better software management.

“We intentionally kept the initial validator set to known entities for simpler node software management,” Duggirala stated.

While the current setup is permissioned, auctions for validator selection are planned for the future. Documentation clarifies that these validators do not control vaults or pools—they merely facilitate trade matching between buyers and sellers without controlling funds’ flow.

Nonetheless, validators could still potentially delay swaps or manipulate markets if they acted maliciously, emphasizing the need for trust in the system’s overall operation.