{"id":907826,"date":"2026-05-23T13:15:04","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T18:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/23\/circle-unveils-cirbtc-to-bring-trusted-bitcoin-liquidity-into-defi\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T13:15:04","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T18:15:04","slug":"circle-unveils-cirbtc-to-bring-trusted-bitcoin-liquidity-into-defi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/23\/circle-unveils-cirbtc-to-bring-trusted-bitcoin-liquidity-into-defi\/","title":{"rendered":"Circle Unveils cirBTC to Bring Trusted Bitcoin Liquidity Into DeFi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bitcoins <\/p>\n<div>\n<div id=\"blockquote-block_1263ec5331077f2b66bde501d987cc31\">\n<ul>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><span>Circle said it would soon launch cirBTC, a wrapped Bitcoin token designed to unlock DeFi utility while addressing trust issues around existing wrappers.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><span>Backed 1:1 by native Bitcoin reserves and built for interoperability, cirBTC aims to make BTC more accessible for yield, liquidity, and broader decentralised finance use cases.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>A wrapped Bitcoin token designed to unlock institutional use of Bitcoin holdings in decentralised finance (<a href=\"https:\/\/cryptonews.com.au\/category\/defi\/\">DeFi<\/a>) beyond the BTC network will soon be launched by stablecoin issuer Circle.<\/p>\n<p>The NYSE-listed company behind the world\u2019s second-largest <a href=\"https:\/\/cryptonews.com.au\/category\/stablecoins\/\">stablecoin<\/a>, USDC, announced its plan to issue a Circle Wrapped Bitcoin token \u2014 cirBTC \u2014 via an X post on the morning of April 2, US time.<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n<p>No firm details have been provided about when cirBTC will launch.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Circle\u2019s VP of product, Rachel Mayer, said cirBTC was the company\u2019s answer to institutional users\u2019 reticence to invest or apply Bitcoin holdings via DeFi apps.<\/p>\n<div id=\"blockquote-block_5e5b9b8546cfdafdd0558dfa778f3131\">\n<p><em>$1.7T of bitcoin is sitting on the sidelines of DeFi. Not because people don\u2019t want yield or liquidity, it\u2019s because they don\u2019t trust the wrapper.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-eio=\"l\" data-old-src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.cryptonews.com.au\/2026\/04\/03152134\/Rachel-Myer-Circle-VP-of-product.jpg\">        Rachel Myer, Circle VP of product    <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>$WBTC is currently the largest wrapped <a href=\"https:\/\/cryptonews.com.au\/category\/bitcoin\/\">Bitcoin<\/a> 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\u2019s partially owned by controversial figure <a href=\"https:\/\/cryptonews.com.au\/category\/justin-sun\/\">Justin Sun<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/cryptonews.com.au\/news\/nasdaqs-tokenisation-push-could-split-markets-td-warns-133413\/\">Nasdaq\u2019s Tokenisation Push Could Split Markets, TD Warns<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-a-secure-wrapped-btc-option-for-institutions-nbsp\">A Secure Wrapped BTC Option for Institutions\u00a0<\/h2>\n<p>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\u2019s own EVM-compatible layer 1 \u2014 Arc \u2014 which launched in late 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Arc is purpose-built for building stablecoin-native applications with USDC as native gas. Circle\u2019s new wrapped BTC token will also integrate with the dollar-backed USDC, and its USDC minting service for institutional customers, Circle Mint.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/cryptonews.com.au\/news\/usr-stablecoin-crashes-after-exploit-as-millions-in-unbacked-tokens-flood-market-133346\/\">USR Stablecoin Crashes After Exploit as Millions in Unbacked Tokens Flood Market<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/jerallaire\/status\/2039738698628223219\">said<\/a> that bringing Circle\u2019s trusted infrastructure to the globe\u2019s largest digital asset would create \u201ca neutral infrastructure for new applications for onchain BTC.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> Jody McDonald <a href=\"https:\/\/cryptonews.com.au\/news\/circle-unveils-cirbtc-to-bring-trusted-bitcoin-liquidity-into-defi-133488\/\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Circle said it would soon launch cirBTC, a wrapped Bitcoin token designed to unlock DeFi utility while addressing trust issues around existing wrappers.\u00a0 Backed 1:1 by native Bitcoin reserves and built for interoperability, cirBTC aims to make BTC more accessible for yield, liquidity, and broader decentralised finance use cases. A wrapped Bitcoin token designed to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":907827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29261,1009],"tags":[11476],"class_list":["post-907826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-circle","category-unveils","tag-bitcoins"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=907826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/907827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=907826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=907826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=907826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}