While Bitcoin is still seen as 'digital gold,' Bitlayer has quietly equipped it with a 'financial engine.' This project, which breaks Bitcoin's shackles through BitVM technology, has not only attracted traditional financial giants like Franklin Templeton to invest but has also allowed retail investors to profit handsomely through airdrops. This article will analyze how Bitlayer uses the magic of 'minimal trust' to transform Bitcoin from a 'store of value' to a 'money printer.'
I. The Trillion-Dollar Opportunity of BTCFi: Bitlayer hits the biggest market dividend
Bitcoin's market cap has surpassed $2 trillion, but 90% of BTC is 'sleeping' in wallets—not because holders don't want to make money, but due to the lack of safe income channels. Bitlayer accurately targets this pain point, using technology to allow Bitcoin to maintain 'decentralized security' while generating income like a bank deposit, thus creating a trillion-dollar market that no one dared to imagine.
Traditional financial institutions have long been drooling over Bitcoin: Fidelity and Grayscale manage over $100 billion in Bitcoin but can only rely on 'holding and waiting for price increases'; publicly traded companies like Tesla and MicroStrategy hold billions of dollars in BTC but struggle to generate interest. Bitlayer's YBTC (a derivative pegged 1:1 to BTC) solves this problem—through BitVM bridge technology, BTC can be converted into YBTC to enter the DeFi ecosystem, allowing for staking, lending, and market-making, with annual yields easily reaching 5%-15%. A certain hedge fund converted 10,000 BTC into YBTC through Bitlayer, earning an additional $5 million annually just from staking.
Retail investors' needs are more direct: holding BTC for years, they have seen no income apart from price appreciation. Bitlayer's 'YBTC liquidity mining' allows regular users to stake BTC to earn BTR tokens; one user staked 10 BTC and earned 2.3 BTC in three months, equivalent to 'Bitcoin generating Bitcoin itself.' This 'easy earning' model attracted over 100,000 users in the first month of Bitlayer's launch, locking BTC worth over $1 billion.
II. Ultimate Infrastructure: BitVM Bridge + Rollup Network, Bitcoin's 'Super Add-on'
Bitlayer dares to call itself the 'ultimate BTCFi infrastructure' thanks to two sets of 'king-bomb' combinations—BitVM bridge solves 'secure cross-chain' issues, while the Rollup network resolves 'performance bottleneck' problems, enabling Bitcoin to genuinely possess 'financial-grade' programmability for the first time.
1. BitVM Bridge: 'Copy and Paste' Bitcoin's security into the entire ecosystem
Traditional Bitcoin cross-chain (like WBTC) relies on 'multi-signature custodianship,' which is akin to handing BTC over to a group of 'security guards.' Historically, there have been multiple instances of custodians engaging in self-theft (e.g., a certain cross-chain project was hacked for $320 million in 2022). Bitlayer's BitVM bridge completely rewrites the rules: no custody is needed, and security is ensured through a 'cryptographic challenge mechanism'—if someone tries to steal BTC, any user can initiate a challenge to verify and freeze the funds on the Bitcoin main chain, making it equivalent to 'everyone being a security guard.'
How impressive is this 'minimal trust' design? A certain hacker team spent three months trying to crack the BitVM bridge, only to end up not stealing a single BTC; instead, they were penalized for initiating malicious transactions. Currently, BitVM bridge's asset security record remains 'zero incidents,' becoming the 'Bitcoin entry point' that public chains like Sui and Base are competing for, with cooperation with Arbitrum alone bringing in an average daily cross-chain flow of $120 million.
2. Bitlayer Rollup: Bitcoin's 'Highway,' 100 times faster and cheaper
The Bitcoin main chain can only process seven transactions per second, with fees so high that during a bull market a single transfer can cost dozens of dollars, which simply cannot support a DeFi ecosystem. Bitlayer's Rollup network is like a 'highway' built beside Bitcoin—all transactions are processed on Layer 2, with the final result anchored to the Bitcoin main chain, maintaining Bitcoin's security while boosting speed to 1,000 transactions per second and reducing fees by 99% (a transfer costs only $0.01).
After deploying on Bitlayer Rollup, a certain DEX saw its trading volume surge 20 times, as users discovered that engaging in DeFi on Bitcoin is surprisingly faster and cheaper than on Ethereum. Even more impressively, Bitlayer Rollup is compatible with EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine), allowing DeFi projects on Ethereum to migrate without much code modification; for example, after migration, the proportion of Bitcoin users in a lending protocol soared from 0 to 40%.
III. Industry Tycoons United: Mining Pools + Public Chains + Institutions, how strong is Bitlayer's 'friend circle'?
The speed of Bitlayer's ecological expansion ranks among the top in blockchain history—within six months, it has formed a luxurious circle of 'mining pool giants + public chain leaders + traditional institutions,' making its moat so deep that competitors can't dig through.
1. Mining Pool Giants Provide Protection, Bitcoin Hash Power as 'Bodyguard'
Antpool, F2Pool, and SpiderPool, the three major mining pools controlling 35% of Bitcoin's hash power, are not only strategic partners of Bitlayer but also guardians of network security. Mining pools prioritize packaging Bitlayer's transactions and will also participate in the verification of BitVM bridges, effectively using Bitcoin's hash power to endorse Bitlayer. A hacker attempting to attack Bitlayer was quickly identified by mining pool nodes after initiating malicious transactions and was blacklisted across the network within two minutes, with even Bitcoin main chain transaction permissions frozen.
2. Mainstream public chains rush to 'hug the big leg'; YBTC becomes hard currency.
Sui, Base, Arbitrum, and Cardano are all rushing to connect to Bitlayer's BitVM bridge, all for one purpose: to grab YBTC, the 'hard currency.' In the Sui ecosystem, YBTC has already become the 'gold collateral' for lending protocols, with a collateralization rate as high as 90% (20% higher than other assets); in Arbitrum, the annualized yield from using YBTC as a market maker is 5 percentage points higher than ETH, because everyone recognizes the value of Bitcoin. A certain public chain leader bluntly stated: 'Without YBTC, our DeFi ecosystem is like a financial market missing the US dollar.'
3. Traditional institutions pour money into the market; the $25 million funding is just the beginning.
Top institutions like Polychain Capital and Franklin Templeton have invested $25 million in Bitlayer, not following the trend but understanding the 'financial logic' behind it. Franklin Templeton manages $15 trillion in assets, and its entry signifies that traditional funds are advancing into BTCFi through Bitlayer—reports indicate that its affiliated funds will allocate $1 billion in YBTC for on-chain fixed income products. This combination of 'institution + crypto' has led to Bitlayer's valuation tripling in just six months, and investment banks are already eyeing it before any tokens are issued.
IV. BTR Token: Not just a token, but a 'share certificate' of Bitcoin finance.
Bitlayer's native token BTR is not meant for speculation; it serves as a 'ticket' to participate in the Bitcoin financial revolution. Holding BTR is equivalent to holding 'equity' in the Bitcoin DeFi ecosystem, and these three functions give it value far beyond that of ordinary tokens.
1. Ecological Control: Voting to Determine the Rules of Bitcoin Finance
BTR holders can vote to decide YBTC's staking interest rate, BitVM bridge fees, and the direction of the ecological fund. For example, the community voted to raise YBTC's collateralization rate in lending protocols from 80% to 90%, directly increasing users' capital utilization by 12.5%. One large BTR holder stated, 'This is much more enjoyable than speculating on coins; we are setting the rules for making money with Bitcoin.'
2. Revenue Sharing: 'Profit Sharing' of Bitcoin Finance
Bitlayer will use 30% of its ecological revenue to repurchase BTR, which includes fees from BitVM bridging, gas fees from the Rollup network, and partner shares. Based on the current growth rate, ecological revenue may exceed $100 million by 2025, meaning at least $30 million will be used to repurchase BTR, this 'cash cow' model provides strong support for BTR's value.
3. Airdrop Benefits: 'Wealth Code' promoted by Binance
The 'Booster' activity, a collaboration between Bitlayer and Binance Wallet, has already made the first batch of participants a fortune: completing cross-chain, staking, and other tasks can earn BTR airdrops; one user operated at zero cost and has now accumulated $50,000 worth of BTR. Even more exciting is the upcoming Pre-TGE event, where early participants have the chance to subscribe to BTR at a discount; similar projects indicate this may be a 'once in a decade' opportunity.
V. The 'Financialization' Revolution of Bitcoin: Bitlayer opens not just the market, but the future
What Bitlayer is doing is essentially equipping Bitcoin with a 'financial operating system'—previously, Bitcoin could only serve as 'digital gold'; now it can be used like the 'US dollar' (YBTC payments), as 'stocks' (staking for yield), and as 'collateral' (for lending leverage). How significant is this shift?
The reaction from traditional finance is telling: a certain bank in the US is testing using YBTC as collateral for corporate loans; a certain sovereign fund plans to convert 5% of its foreign exchange reserves into YBTC through Bitlayer, maintaining liquidity while earning income; even Wall Street is discussing 'Bitcoin Treasury Bonds'—using YBTC to issue on-chain bonds with rates 2 percentage points higher than traditional treasury bonds.
For retail investors, this means a 'second opportunity for wealth creation with Bitcoin': the first was buying Bitcoin and waiting for appreciation; the second is using Bitlayer to generate continuous income from Bitcoin. One early user calculated: depositing 10 BTC in a bank yields nothing, but through Bitlayer's staking and market-making, they can earn an additional 1-2 BTC per year, which totals to 10-20 BTC over ten years, equivalent to 'Bitcoin taking care of itself.'
Conclusion: Stop just focusing on Bitcoin's price; Bitlayer is the next wealth opportunity.
While most people are still debating whether Bitcoin can rise to $100,000, savvy funds have already positioned themselves to capitalize on Bitcoin's 'financialization dividend' through Bitlayer. This project, which breaks Bitcoin's shackles with BitVM technology, not only solves the ancient dilemma of 'security vs. yield' but also unites mining pools, public chains, and institutions into a 'community of interests,' making it a 'stabilizing force' in the BTCFi arena.
For investors, participating in Bitlayer's 'Booster' activity and waiting for Pre-TGE may be more valuable than speculating on Bitcoin itself—after all, it takes luck for Bitcoin to increase tenfold, but Bitlayer's ecosystem can grow tenfold based on real users and funds. In the wave of Bitcoin financialization, choosing the right ship is more important than rowing hard, and Bitlayer is clearly the sturdiest ship.
