- Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said the company plans to launch ‘cirBTC,’ a wrapped Bitcoin (BTC) asset.
- Circle said cirBTC will be backed 1:1 by BTC, with reserve assets held separately at regulated entities within the group.
- Circle said combining cirBTC with USD Coin (USDC) would allow institutional investors to use BTC as collateral without selling it.
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Circle Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Allaire said the company plans to launch cirBTC, a wrapped Bitcoin (BTC) asset, as part of a broader push to expand on-chain financial infrastructure for institutions.
In a post on X on May 22, Allaire wrote that “cirBTC is coming soon.”
cirBTC is a Bitcoin-based token that Circle plans to issue on Ethereum and the Arc network. The company said the token will be backed 1:1 by BTC, with reserve assets held separately at regulated entities within the group.
Circle said Bitcoin cannot interact directly with smart contracts, making it difficult to use for lending, borrowing and complex trading strategies. It described cirBTC as a structure designed to turn Bitcoin into productive capital.
Circle also emphasized that pairing cirBTC with USD Coin, or USDC, would allow institutional investors to use BTC as collateral without selling it. One example is borrowing USDC against cirBTC.