DeFi Planet

Last updated on December 31st, 2025 at 09:50 am

Singapore, Singapore, December 5th, 2025, Chainwire

Hotstuff Labs today announced the public testnet for Hotstuff L1, a DeFi Layer 1 blockchain powered by DracoBFT, a custom-built consensus protocol. Hotstuff L1 is a purpose-built chain that pairs a highly performant on-chain order book with a programmable finance routing layer where validators act as last-mile gateways to trading, payments, and fiat rails.

Unlike general-purpose chains, Hotstuff L1 is designed as an Uber-style routing layer where validators deliver real-world financial access on demand.

Hotstuff Labs is backed by top-tier investors, including Delphi Digital, Dialectic, Stake Capital, Tykhe Ventures, and the founders of leading DeFi protocols such as 1inch, Safe, Biconomy, Socket, and more.

Julien Bouteloup, Founder of Stake Capital Group, said, “Hotstuff Labs is building a performant chain that links trading, payments, and real-world settlement into one coherent layer. The vision is to enable validators to become active financial access points. That aligns perfectly with how we see the future of infrastructure: decentralised, compliant, and directly plugged into the global economy.”

Validators as Financial Access Points

Beyond trading, Hotstuff L1 is architected so validators can opt in as permissioned financial service providers. On Hotstuff, validators aren’t just for consensus, they act as global financial access points for both the core trading engine and end users.

For the core trading engine, stablecoin rails enable access to offchain liquidity.
For end users, validators unlock last-mile connectivity for fiatcrypto on/off-ramps, payments, and FX use cases.

Deep integrations with leading payment platforms, on/off-ramps, banking partners, and card programs baked into the chain enable validators to earn by:

Powering fiat stablecoin on/off-ramps
Enabling regional payment and remittance rails
Issuing or supporting cards and local accounts
Serving as last-mile connectivity into different currencies and regions

The chain matches users to specific validators based on stake, performance history, and quality-of-service much like a routing layer combined with lightweight zero-knowledge proofs for trustless verification of both on-chain and off-chain actions.

“Most chains validate blocks. Hotstuff validates and delivers trustless access to money. It’s the Uber for financial validators, routing every flow to the right provider,” said Vyom Sharma, Co-Founder & CEO of Hotstuff Labs. “We’re building a Layer 1 that can connect a trader in Asia, a remittance corridor in LATAM, and a card issuer in Europe on the same settlement fabric”.

Hotstuff Public Testnet: Now Open

The Hotstuff L1 public testnet is live and open to:

Traders & Quants – can test early perp and spot trading, multi-venue vaults, and market infrastructure built directly on the core L1.
Builders, Fintechs & Stablecoin Infrastructure Providers – can partner with Hotstuff Labs to enable new trading primitives, payments, FX, and settlement use cases.
Validators & Node Operators – can run DracoBFT nodes, benchmark performance, and experiment with financial service modules.

Get Started

Website: https://hotstuff.trade
X (Twitter): https://x.com/tradehotstuff
DracoBFT Whitepaper: https://hotstuff.trade/DracoBFT.pdf
Community & Integrations: https://discord.gg/tradehotstuff

About Hotstuff Labs

Hotstuff Labs is building Hotstuff L1, a purpose-built DeFi Layer 1 for programmable finance, powered by the DracoBFT consensus engine and a modular execution fabric. With deep experience across finance, consensus, trading, cryptoeconomics, and protocol design, the team is creating a global routing layer that enables performant on-chain trading and connects payments, remittances, and fiat rails on a single, coherent chain.

For press & partnerships: https://x.com/hotstuff_labs