According to CoinWorld news, Lombard is the Bitcoin DeFi protocol behind the liquid staking token LBTC, preparing to launch its native BARD token while introducing an independent governance entity, the Liquid Bitcoin Foundation, and conducting a community sale on Buidlpad. Lombard co-founder Jacob Phillips told The Block that this community sale aims to raise $6.75 million by distributing 1.5% of the total supply of BARD on Buidlpad, implying a fully diluted valuation of $450 million. He declined to disclose the total supply of the token. The sale will open for KYC registration and subscription on August 26 at 12:00 PM UTC and will close on August 29 at 11:59 AM UTC. Eligible participants can make contributions from September 1 to September 2, with settlement and refund scheduled for September 4 at 2:00 PM UTC. Users can participate using USD1 stablecoins, BNB, or LBTC on Buidlpad. LBTC holders, existing Lombard users, and promotional participants who created content about Lombard and Buidlpad before the KYC period will have priority access. Phillips said, "10% of the sales will be reserved for creators and educators who emphasize the role of Lombard in building the next chapter of Bitcoin." Phillips declined to comment on the date of the token generation event and stated that details would be announced in "the coming weeks and months." Lombard has also established the Liquid Bitcoin Foundation, a governance entity responsible for overseeing protocol development, partnerships, research, and grants. Phillips stated that the grant program will support business projects and public goods aimed at developing the ecosystem. The ICO platform for the BARD sale, Buidlpad, was founded by Erick Zhang, who is also an operator at Nomad Capital, one of Lombard's investors. Its competitors include Echo launched by Jordan "Cobie" Fish and Legion incubated by Delphi Labs. Lombard's core product is LBTC, a yield-generating bitcoin token with a total value locked of approximately $1.5 billion. LBTC integrates with Aave, Etherfi, Pendle, and other protocols, and is secured by a consortium of 14 digital asset companies, including Galaxy, Wintermute, and OKX. Around LBTC, Lombard has built a broader stack: a security layer anchored by its own blockchain, middleware like the SDK used by Bybit and Binance to embed BTC yields, and cross-chain wrappers like BTCK on Katana. In terms of distribution, Lombard operates treasury and aggregation tools that direct bitcoin into on-chain yield strategies. Phillips said, "Lombard is building a full-stack infrastructure suite to accelerate the development of on-chain capital markets for Bitcoin." Lombard was established in 2024, having raised $17 million in a seed round led by Polychain Capital, with participation from Franklin Templeton, Bybit, YZi Labs (formerly Binance Labs), among others. The Funding newsletter: Stay updated on the latest cryptocurrency VC funding and M&A deals, news, and trends through my free bi-monthly The Funding. Sign up here!

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