Founder’s Letter Q1 2025

Hey there,

I often talk about how 2025 is about activation. That everything we’re building is setting the stage for something bigger.

That work started in Q1. This quarter was about setting things in motion, carefully and deliberately. Every decision we made followed a single principle: Make 2025 the year a Bitcoin financial system becomes real at scale.

At Hermetica, our mission is to enable global financial freedom. That can’t exist without a sound foundation. The only foundation strong enough is Bitcoin. Turning that belief into a system requires more than conviction. It takes liquidity, usability, and a network that works together. That is what Q1 was all about.

We began with the most important piece: people. We doubled our team’s headcount with incredible talent and unique strengths across engineering, growth, product, and partnerships. Our team is now faster, more focused, and more prepared for what’s coming next.

With that momentum, we turned our attention to the product. The next version of the Hermetica app is well underway. It’s a complete rethinking of the user experience. We are building for scale, for more users, deeper integrations, and greater clarity. Every choice we make now shapes how people will access Bitcoin finance in the future.

At the same time, USDh has continued to prove what it was built for. It stays stable. It's always liquid. It grows with the ecosystem. This quarter, USDh became the largest stablecoin on Stacks. On Velar, it powers the first Bitcoin-native perpetuals DEX. Traders can now take leveraged positions without leaving Bitcoin’s design space. This brings practical DeFi tools directly to Bitcoin users.

On Bitflow, USDh sits at the center of the largest stablecoin AMM on Stacks. That position matters. It turns USDh into the go-to stablecoin for swaps, yield strategies, and protocol-level liquidity. We’ve also been preparing what’s next. Our work with money markets will bring even greater utility to USDh, driving more robust lend and borrow opportunities with more advanced use-cases to follow. The same stablecoin you trust today is evolving into a core financial asset across Bitcoin DeFi.

While many things are changing, our broader mission remains unchanged: Hermetica exists to enable global financial freedom by building a financial system on Bitcoin. That system needs a stablecoin at its core. One that is reliable. One that can generate native yield. One that connects deeply with the rest of the ecosystem.

This is USDh. A tool that holds value, grows capital, and addresses the scaling challenges we all face in this early phase of Bitcoin finance. There is still a long road ahead, but the foundation is now in place.

Thank you to everyone who played a role this quarter, from stakers to LPs, from core contributors to active community members. Every action taken helps us move toward something much larger.

We’re ready for the next chapter.

Jakob
Founder, Hermetica