The primary decentralized finance (DeFi) firm to launch a user-friendly suite of merchandise on Bitcoin will “win the complete market” of the blockchain’s 300 million customers, one crypto founder says.
Alexei Zamyatin, the co-founder of the Bitcoin layer 2 Construct on Bitcoin, advised Cointelegraph at TOKEN2049 in Dubai that “the benefit of Bitcoin DeFi is that the market is far greater, you might have a a lot greater retail consumer base you can faucet into.”
“It’s not simple to transform it, however when you handle to win in Bitcoin DeFi, you win the complete market.”
Zamyatin stated the 300 million Bitcoin customers would imply DeFi providers on the blockchain would “outgrow every part we have seen to this point in Ethereum and Solana.”
Construct on Bitcoin is likely one of the companies seeking to win market share, providing a hybrid layer 2 answer that mixes Bitcoin’s safety with Ethereum DeFi capabilities by way of BitVM, a platform that processes Turing-complete Bitcoin contracts.
Zamyatin argued that Bitcoin-native bridges are mandatory for DeFi on Bitcoin because the blockchain’s safety is powerful, however it lacks the human expertise, instruments and community results of Ethereum.
Zamyatin stated Bitcoin (BTC) yield and stablecoin merchandise are driving robust demand for Bitcoin-based DeFi.
“Loads of establishments which might be shopping for Bitcoin now often have to seek out yield on the belongings they maintain. So Bitcoin yield is changing into a highly regarded and extremely sought-after factor.”
Demand for Bitcoin-backed stablecoins can be skyrocketing as a result of Bitcoin is the “greatest collateral,” Zamyatin added.
What if we tokenized the Bitcoin ETF so establishments may get entry to DeFi yields? pic.twitter.com/2HCpwbCZDS
— alexei (@alexeiZamyatin) April 10, 2025
Bitcoin staking has grow to be the principle DeFi use case exterior of funds, which includes Bitcoin holders locking their cash in self-custodial vaults or extractable one-time signatures to earn staking rewards on proof-of-stake blockchains like Ethereum.
The Babylon Protocol is at the moment main this market with $4.64 billion value of worth locked, representing practically 80% of all worth locked on Bitcoin, DefiLlama information reveals.
Bitcoin’s DeFi TVL remains to be a fraction of the $54.6 billion value of worth locked on Ethereum.
Bridging options a controversial subject
Zamyatin acknowledged the quite a few hacks on blockchain bridges, however argued most of these incidents resulted from groups failing to handle their personal keys, quite than from good contract vulnerabilities.
Whereas competitors within the retail market is broad open, Zamyatin famous that many establishments nonetheless hesitate to make use of bridges, that enable customers to maneuver worth between incompatible blockchains.
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Efforts have been made to extend the variety of bridge signers from 5 to 50 in some circumstances, Zamyatin famous.
Nevertheless, establishments have been reluctant to undertake these options as a result of they typically don’t know who’s signing the transactions.
For instance, the Ren Protocol’s RenBTC operates by way of a decentralized community of nodes referred to as Darknodes, which signal transactions to lock BTC and mint RenBTC to make use of on different chains.
Nevertheless, establishments proceed to keep away from these protocols as a result of diploma of anonymity concerned and as a substitute decide to make use of trusted custodians like BitGo and Coinbase Custody for such actions.
Journal: ZK-proofs unlock trillions in Bitcoin for DeFi — BitcoinOS and Starknet
Extra reporting by Ezra Reguerra.
