In the past few years, I have been observing the 'usability systems' related to Bitcoin, but most projects remain at simple packaging, custody, or lending models, with few attempting to reshape the use of BTC from a structural perspective. It wasn't until Lorenzo's emergence that I first felt, 'maybe Bitcoin can really be broken down into financial components for different purposes.' This is not a vague compliment but a judgment based on actual product interactions: Lorenzo's mechanism allows BTC's value to no longer be confined to a single form but rather split into independent assets that meet different levels of demand.
The current dilemma of Bitcoin is not a lack of value, but rather a lack of value movement. More than half of BTC is long-term dormant in static wallets, and holders have no motivation to transfer them to higher-risk protocols. The reason is simple: the majority of Bitcoin investors are conservative; they are willing to hold long-term but are reluctant to take the risk of asset loss for additional returns. The common logic in DeFi protocols of 'high yield for high risk' does not apply to BTC holders; they want to 'maintain the original status of BTC while gaining additional utility,' and Lorenzo's model precisely hits this psychological point.
Lorenzo does not urge users to拆 BTC, exchange tokens, or engage in complex strategies like some projects, but instead allows the principal to maintain its most essential form through a method of 'separating income rights.' For example, when users lock BTC, the principal is represented as one type of token, while income rights exist separately as another type of token. The significance of this separation goes far beyond just 'splitting income'; it allows each right to flow, trade, and be used for financial combinations independently.
If you have had experience with structured products in the past, you should know that income rights are actually a part that is 'easier to be marketized,' because the fluctuations in income, risk pricing, and trading curves are much more complex than that of the principal. Lorenzo's choice to separate income rights is essentially extracting the 'non-linear value' of BTC, allowing those willing to seek volatility to trade, while allowing those who want stability to retain the principal. This way, BTC is no longer a 'holistic asset,' but a set of functional components that can be combined as needed. This method of disaggregation will greatly improve its usability on-chain.
The more critical issue is that the rights to income itself can drive the protocol to form a real 'internal economic cycle.' Because the value of income rights is driven by protocol earnings, rather than relying solely on market speculation. This structure makes Lorenzo's design closer to the 'income note market' in traditional finance, rather than the common 'high-yield pools' in DeFi. The more active the market, the more BTC locked, and the more frequent the transactions, the more valuable the income rights become. The more valuable the income rights are, the more they can attract users of structured products, forming a system of cyclical growth.
BANK's position in this system is more central than many people think. It is not a 'token for paying gas,' but a key component that can capture protocol earnings and governance rights. Holding BANK essentially means 'holding the future cash flow of the protocol.' Because Lorenzo's earnings come from real usage, rather than short-term lock-up incentives, the value logic of BANK is supported by 'income generated from usage,' rather than 'price increases driven by sentiment.' This design may not suit quick in-and-out short-term players, but is very suitable for those who observe the protocol's trading scale long-term.
Many people underestimate Lorenzo because they only see the current scale, without realizing the potential market size once this structure is accepted by the BTC market. Bitcoin's market cap is far greater than Ethereum's, and the structured asset market of ETH reaching its current scale is not because there is more ETH, but because ETH is easier to financialize. If BTC also gains a similar structured expression, the long-term market size could far exceed what most people can currently imagine.
Of course, this system is also full of challenges. The mechanism for splitting income rights requires extremely high security and process transparency; otherwise, users will not feel comfortable locking BTC in the system. Furthermore, the liquidity of the income rights themselves must be supported by enough protocols; otherwise, the value of the income rights cannot be fully realized. More critically, Lorenzo must enhance composability without sacrificing security; otherwise, it will become another 'passive income pool' that cannot support the large-scale demand of BTC DeFi.
Even so, I still believe that Lorenzo is paving a path that may truly change the behavioral model of BTC in the coming years. It is not a protocol pursuing short-term TVL, but rather trying to establish a standardized representation of Bitcoin's financialization. If it succeeds, it will mean that for the first time Bitcoin has the ability to flow freely on-chain, combine freely, and build structured products freely, rather than being stuck in a 'static storage' state. For an asset with a market cap of trillions of dollars, the impact of such a change is enormous.
The value of BANK will also be gradually reassessed by the market in this process. Its price will not skyrocket due to a single event but will form a long-term value accumulation process as the protocol scales up, yields grow, use cases expand, and the number of structured products increases. For long-term participants who truly understand the income model, such assets are often more sustainable than narrative tokens that spike during bull markets.
I believe that more people will start to pay attention to the next stage of BTC's utility in the future, rather than just its storage function. Lorenzo may be one of the few projects that truly provides actionable pathways for this direction, and BANK may also be a key credential on this path.
