Buenos Aires-based RSK Labs, developer of the RootStock smart contract platform, has raised $1 million in seed capital from several prominent firms in the blockchain space.

The round was led by the world’s biggest bitcoin mining hardware manufacturer Bitmain Technologies, with participation from blockchain investment firms Coinsilium and Digital Currency Group.

The release stated that RSK Labs will use the newly-acquired capital to “to ensure the complete execution of its roadmap”, and to also bolster its presences in Latin America, Asia, Europe and the US.

RSK’s smart contract platform is the first of its kind, allowing developers to build various decentralized applications on Bitcoin’s blockchain, as well as on the Ethereum blockchain.

According to the press release, bitcoin miners will be able to merge-mine the RootStock digital tokens, which will give the RSK platform the widest possible user base. CEO of Bitmain Technologies Wu Jihan, said that RSK’s platform will kick-start a smart contract-based digital economy:

“Rootstock is the most exciting opportunity for me among the startups in the Bitcoin ecosystem. The tidal wave of startups developing smart contract solutions based on RSK will bring countless miracles”

Barry Silbert, CEO of Digital Currency Group, echoed Jihan’s sentiments saying that smart contacts will enable businesses to do things on the blockchain that were never possible before, “Our team at DCG feels that Rootstock developing is important for both the technical and business communities building on blockchain technology today, and will enable many new use cases that have not been possible to date.” said Silbert.

The developer team is aiming to release a private testnet by the end of next month, and a full Beta testnet is scheduled to be released by September of 2016.

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