bitcoin-staking
(3)
Xinshu Dong and the work after the breakthrough
A billion-dollar token market cap made Zilliqa conspicuous. Xinshu Dong’s path through RockX, venture investing and Bitcoin staking tells a quieter story about getting an idea to work outside the lab.
RockX
RockX is a Singapore-based Web3 infrastructure company that runs institutional-grade staking, validator, and RPC/node-API services across major proof-of-stake blockchains. Founded in 2019 by veterans of Zilliqa and RockMiner and led by CEO Zhuling Chen, it operates 13,000+ validators and has secured more than US$1.5B in staked assets. RockX is also an early contributor to Bedrock, the multi-asset liquid restaking protocol behind uniETH, uniBTC and the BR token, positioning the company at the center of institutional staking and Bitcoin-based DeFi in Asia.
Thesis*
Thesis* is a Bitcoin-focused venture production studio founded in 2014 that builds companies and protocols in-house rather than investing in outside teams. Operating under the banner "Money is power, Bitcoin is empowerment," it has incubated a portfolio spanning Bitcoin infrastructure and consumer finance - including tBTC (a decentralized, trust-minimized bridge that tokenizes Bitcoin on Ethereum), Mezo (an on-chain Bitcoin banking layer backed by the MUSD stablecoin), Fold (a Bitcoin rewards app), Acre (Bitcoin staking), and Taho (a community-owned web3 wallet). Led by CEO Matt Luongo, Thesis raised a $21 million Series A in 2021 and has become one of the most prolific studios building Bitcoin-native financial products.