Circle Unveils cirBTC to Bring Trusted Bitcoin Liquidity Into DeFi

No firm details have been provided about when cirBTC will launch.   

Circle’s VP of product, Rachel Mayer, said cirBTC was the company’s answer to institutional users’ reticence to invest or apply Bitcoin holdings via DeFi apps.

$1.7T of bitcoin is sitting on the sidelines of DeFi. Not because people don’t want yield or liquidity, it’s because they don’t trust the wrapper.

Rachel Myer, Circle VP of product

$WBTC is currently the largest wrapped Bitcoin token, with a market cap of US$7.9 billion (AU$11.4 billion) at the time of writing, according to CoinMarketCap data. The Bitcoin reserves behind WBTC are managed by BitGo, which has a partnership with BiT Global, a company that’s partially owned by controversial figure Justin Sun. 

Related: Nasdaq’s Tokenisation Push Could Split Markets, TD Warns

A Secure Wrapped BTC Option for Institutions 

cirBTC will be 1:1 backed by BTC reserves that can be independently verified onchain. While the token will be interoperable across chains, it will first launch on Ethereum and Circle’s own EVM-compatible layer 1 — Arc — which launched in late 2025. 

Arc is purpose-built for building stablecoin-native applications with USDC as native gas. Circle’s new wrapped BTC token will also integrate with the dollar-backed USDC, and its USDC minting service for institutional customers, Circle Mint. 

Related: USR Stablecoin Crashes After Exploit as Millions in Unbacked Tokens Flood Market

Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said that bringing Circle’s trusted infrastructure to the globe’s largest digital asset would create “a neutral infrastructure for new applications for onchain BTC.” 

The company said its neutral and secure version of wrapped Bitcoin would particularly benefit OTC desks, market makers, and lending protocols that rely on tokenised BTC.