Source: Cointelegraph.com NewsThe first decentralized finance (DeFi) company to launch a user-friendly suite of products on Bitcoin will \u201cwin the entire market\u201d of the blockchain\u2019s 300 million users, one crypto founder says.
\nAlexei Zamyatin, the co-founder of the Bitcoin layer 2 Build on Bitcoin, told Cointelegraph at TOKEN2049 in Dubai that \u201cthe advantage of Bitcoin DeFi is that the market is much bigger, you have a much bigger retail user base that you can tap into.\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s not easy to convert it, but if you manage to win in Bitcoin DeFi, you win the entire market.\u201d
\nZamyatin said the 300 million Bitcoin users would mean DeFi services on the blockchain would \u201coutgrow everything we’ve seen so far in Ethereum and Solana.\u201d\u00a0
\nBuild on Bitcoin is one of the firms looking to win market share, offering a hybrid layer 2 solution that combines Bitcoin\u2019s security with Ethereum DeFi capabilities via BitVM, a platform that processes Turing-complete Bitcoin contracts.
\nZamyatin argued that Bitcoin-native bridges are necessary for DeFi on Bitcoin as the blockchain\u2019s security is strong, but it lacks the human talent, tools and network effects of Ethereum.\u00a0
\nAlexei Zamyatin speaking with Cointelegraph\u2019s Ezra Reguerra at Token2049. Source: CointelegraphZamyatin said Bitcoin (BTC) yield and stablecoin products are driving strong demand for Bitcoin-based DeFi.
\n\u201cA lot of institutions that are buying Bitcoin now usually have to find yield on the assets they hold. So Bitcoin yield is becoming a very hot and highly sought-after thing.\u201d
\nDemand for Bitcoin-backed stablecoins is also skyrocketing because Bitcoin is the \u201cbest collateral,\u201d Zamyatin added.<\/p>\n
What if we tokenized the Bitcoin ETF so institutions could get access to DeFi yields? pic.twitter.com\/2HCpwbCZDS\u2014 alexei (@alexeiZamyatin) April 10, 2025<\/p>\n
Bitcoin staking has become the main DeFi use case outside of payments, which involves Bitcoin holders locking their coins in self-custodial vaults or extractable one-time signatures to earn staking rewards on proof-of-stake blockchains like Ethereum. Source: Cointelegraph.com NewsThe first decentralized finance (DeFi) company to launch a user-friendly suite of products on Bitcoin will \u201cwin the entire market\u201d of the blockchain\u2019s 300 million users, one crypto… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128350"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cryptospotters.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe Babylon Protocol is currently leading this market with $4.64 billion worth of value locked, representing nearly 80% of all value locked on Bitcoin, DefiLlama data shows.
\nBitcoin\u2019s DeFi TVL is still a fraction of the $54.6 billion worth of value locked on Ethereum.
\nBridging solutions a controversial topic
\nZamyatin acknowledged the numerous hacks on blockchain bridges, but argued most of those incidents resulted from teams failing to manage their private keys, rather than from smart contract vulnerabilities.
\nWhile competition in the retail market is wide open, Zamyatin noted that many institutions still hesitate to use bridges, that allow users to move value between incompatible blockchains.
\nRelated: Bitcoin NFTs, layer-2 and restaking hype \u2018completely gone\u2019
\nEfforts have been made to increase the number of bridge signers from five to 50 in some cases, Zamyatin noted.
\nHowever, institutions have been reluctant to adopt these solutions because they often don\u2019t know who\u2019s signing the transactions.
\nFor example, the Ren Protocol\u2019s RenBTC operates via a decentralized network of nodes called Darknodes, which sign transactions to lock BTC and mint RenBTC to use on other chains.\u00a0
\nHowever, institutions continue to avoid these protocols due to the degree of anonymity involved and instead opt to use trusted custodians like BitGo and Coinbase Custody for such activities.
\nMagazine: ZK-proofs unlock trillions in Bitcoin for DeFi \u2014 BitcoinOS and Starknet
\nAdditional reporting by Ezra Reguerra.Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"