HoneyB raises $5M for bitcoin yield via borrowed stablecoins

Nectar Group, the start-up behind bitcoin income platform HoneyB, has raised $5 million in a seed round at a $30 million post-money valuation, The Block reported on Tuesday. Portal Ventures led the round, joined by Peer Venture Partners, Anchorage Digital Ventures, an unnamed family office and angel investors. It was structured as a SAFE with a one-for-one token warrant, and no investor got a board seat, CEO Josh Gordon said.

How the yield is supposed to work

Bitcoin itself pays nothing, so HoneyB goes through stablecoins:

• A holder borrows stablecoins against their BTC as collateral, held either in an on-chain smart contract or with a custodian such as Anchorage Digital or BitGo.
• The stablecoins go into a fund offering exposure to Treasuries, fixed income, credit, gold, volatility and options. The first strategy uses a portfolio from Simplify Asset Management, tokenized by Alphaledger, with Amber Capital SPC as issuer.
• The underlying product aims for about 10% a year; HoneyB targets 2% to 4% on the user's bitcoin after borrowing costs and fees. "Returns are not guaranteed," Gordon said.

Our take

The pitch is honest about the plumbing, and that is the point worth dwelling on. The bitcoin never earns anything by itself. The return is the spread between what a fund makes and what the loan costs, so a weaker fund year or pricier borrowing can shrink that 2–4% quickly, while the BTC collateral still faces the usual lending and liquidation risks of any loan. Gordon himself names the alternatives: lending your BTC out or selling options on it. HoneyB's angle is bundling custody, borrowing and investing in one place and letting partners offer it under their own brands. Rivals named include Bitwise, Lombard, Solv and Sentora.

When and for whom

The first product is due in Q4 2026 for institutional investors outside the US, with US institutional products later and a retail version targeted for Q1 2027. If the mechanics are new to you, start with what a stablecoin is and what DeFi is.