While Bitcoin is still being mocked as 'only good for speculation', Bitlayer has charged into the crypto space with a set of 'combo moves': allowing Bitcoin to 'clone' itself across different chains for profit, boosting the speed of Bitcoin DeFi by 100 times with underlying technology, and being chased by traditional financial giants with a $25 million investment. What magic does this project hold that makes the entire industry shout, 'Bitcoin's second spring is here'?

One, Bitcoin's 'money-making anxiety'; Bitlayer has taken this business.

Bitcoin holders have been increasingly worried over the past few years: besides waiting for BTC to rise, there are almost no reliable ways to make money. Store it on a centralized platform? The shadow of FTX's collapse hasn't dissipated; convert it to WBTC to play DeFi? There's fear of multi-signature institutions pulling tricks. Data shows that out of the $13 trillion market cap of Bitcoin globally, less than 2% participate in DeFi—not because they don't want to earn, but because they lack safe avenues.

Bitlayer has precisely hit two explosive points:

• Institutional money is rushing in like crazy: the US spot ETF sees net inflows of hundreds of millions of dollars daily, public companies and banks are hoarding Bitcoin, but these 'regular troops' need compliant and transparent income-generating tools; they can't just let Bitcoin 'sleep' in wallets.

• Retail investors want simplicity: ordinary users just want to know how to directly stake BTC for interest? How to cross-chain to other ecosystems for yield farming? The emergence of Bitlayer has packaged these demands into a 'foolproof service'.

The current BTCFi market is like Ethereum DeFi in 2019—once the infrastructure is in place, funds will flow in like a tide. And Bitlayer is trying to be the one 'building the stage'.

Two core weapons, Bitlayer gives Bitcoin 'plugins'.

BitVM bridge: Bitcoin's 'security pass'.

Traditional Bitcoin cross-chain, put simply, means 'handing over money to others for custody'. WBTC relies on 21 institutional signatures; once a few collude, users' BTC becomes someone else's property. Bitlayer's BitVM bridge completely rewrote the rules:

• A bridge that doesn't touch money is a good bridge: users lock BTC on the Bitcoin mainnet, and Bitlayer generates a 1:1 corresponding YBTC through cryptographic proof, without any institutional endorsement throughout the process. Even if all bridge nodes run away, users can unlock BTC from the mainnet with their private keys, providing a strong sense of security.

• The first to successfully run the BitVM mainnet globally: while others are still testing in laboratories, Bitlayer has already made this technology run stably on the mainnet, allowing YBTC to cross-chain to ecosystems like Sui and Base, with fees half of WBTC and transaction times reduced from hours to seconds.

• YBTC is 'the BTC that can make money': after cross-chain, it can be directly thrown into the lending pool (for example, borrowing USDC on Sui), doing liquidity mining, steadily earning annualized returns of 5%-10%, and can operate at any time to exchange back to BTC, with every step on-chain verifiable.

Bitlayer network: Bitcoin's 'high-speed runway'.

The Bitcoin mainnet is as slow as an 'old-age scooter', with only 7 transactions per second; when fees are high, transferring a transaction can cost dozens of dollars, which simply can't support DeFi. The Bitlayer network has equipped it with a 'high-speed train engine':

• Rollup technology is supercharged: transactions are processed on Bitlayer (which can handle thousands per second), with the final results recorded on the Bitcoin mainnet, enjoying Bitcoin's security while having Ethereum's speed, with fees slashed to just a few cents.

• Developers are ecstatic: compatibility with EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) means that DeFi protocols on Ethereum (like lending and swapping) can be copied and pasted directly to Bitlayer without code changes, allowing users to play with YBTC, significantly lowering the entry barrier for developers.

• Miners can also share the cake: top mining pools like Antpool and F2Pool are collaborating with Bitlayer, allowing them to package Rollup transactions for extra fees, essentially turning Bitcoin miners from 'accountants' into 'shareholders of the DeFi ecosystem', full of motivation.

Three, the partnership list is too strong! Bitlayer's collaboration list scares off competitors.

Bitlayer's collaboration map is filled with 'big bombs':

• Public chain giants are lining up to get on board: Base, Arbitrum, Sui, and Cardano have all opened their doors to Bitlayer, allowing YBTC to move freely in and out of these ecosystems' DeFi pools. For example, using YBTC to stake and borrow on Base, or exchanging stablecoins on Cardano, instantly reaching hundreds of millions of users.

• Mining pool bosses are personally involved: Antpool (the second-largest Bitcoin mining pool in the world) and F2Pool (which accounts for 10% of computing power) are not only providing technical support but also recommending users to use Bitlayer on their platforms, essentially opening a 'DeFi crash course' for the Bitcoin mining community.

• Binance wallet is deeply integrated: the second phase of the 'Booster' event is in full swing, where users can store YBTC in the Binance wallet and complete tasks to draw BTR tokens. Behind this is the top exchange's early bet on the Bitlayer ecosystem; after all, who wouldn't want to seize the traffic entrance of BTCFi?

These collaborations are not 'PPT collaborations': in just three months since its launch, the cross-chain total of YBTC has surpassed 15,000 BTC, with staking scale in the Sui ecosystem exceeding $30 million, and it is still growing at a rate of 25% per week. Data doesn't lie.

Four, capital votes with real money, the ambition behind the $25 million financing.

The news of Bitlayer's $25 million financing in 2025 directly set the industry on fire: led by Polychain Capital (the 'talent scout' of the crypto world, having invested in Solana, Avalanche), with Franklin Templeton (a traditional asset management giant managing $15 trillion) leading the investment, followed by Framework Ventures, ABCDE, and others.

The way this money will be spent reveals Bitlayer's 'expansion plan':

• 60% invested in technology: optimizing the challenge mechanism for BitVM bridging to make cross-chain smoother; upgrading the Rollup network, aiming to increase transaction speed by another 50%.

• 30% for ecosystem development: providing subsidies to DeFi projects that connect, with the top 50 protocols deployed on Bitlayer eligible for up to $200,000 in startup funding, attracting developers to come in and 'build houses'.

• 10% on user acquisition: the 'Booster' event and the upcoming Pre-TGE aim to get more people holding BTR tokens, after all, the prosperity of the ecosystem requires a user base.

The most noteworthy aspect is Franklin Templeton's entry—this giant managing vast pension and insurance funds is unlikely to be here just to 'speculate on coins'; a greater possibility is that in the future, they will introduce traditional funds into Bitcoin DeFi through Bitlayer, which is the real 'nuclear-level layout'.

Five, risks and opportunities coexist; can Bitlayer double Bitcoin's value?

Bitlayer's facade is impressive, but the pitfalls must be clearly understood.

• The technology is still in the 'trial period': BitVM is a new technology; although the mainnet is running, will the challenge mechanism get stuck when a massive influx of users occurs? Can the security of cross-chain withstand the test of black-hat hackers? These need time to verify.

• Competitors are not soft targets: WBTC has occupied the market for years, while STX and Rootstock are also deeply cultivating BTCFi; Bitlayer needs to quickly capture user mindshare, or it could easily be outpaced by 'latecomers'.

• Regulatory red lines must not be crossed: if YBTC is defined as a 'security', institutional entry may hesitate, which poses a potential risk for Bitlayer that relies on institutional funds.

But the opportunities are even more enticing: if Bitlayer can capture 20% of the Bitcoin DeFi market, the scale of YBTC could reach $26 billion, and the BTR token, as the 'fuel' of the ecosystem (for paying fees and governance voting), could easily reach a market cap of $2 billion. Users participating in the 'Booster' event are likely to be the early beneficiaries.

Summary: Bitcoin's 'DeFi revolution', Bitlayer stands at the forefront.

What Bitlayer is doing is not just patching Bitcoin, but rather replacing it with a complete 'financial operating system'. When $13 trillion worth of Bitcoin begins to flow freely in the DeFi world, and traditional institutional funds enter this ecosystem through Bitlayer, the entire crypto market landscape will be rewritten.

Today's Bitlayer is like Aave in 2020—seemingly unremarkable at first, but if it captures the industry's pain points, it can grow into a giant. For those looking to lay out BTCFi, understanding Bitlayer's logic is more important than being fixated on price: whoever can solve the 'difficulty of making money' with Bitcoin will get the largest piece of the cake.

And Bitlayer has already put the knife and fork in front of the users.