Circle announces plans to debut wrapped Bitcoin for institutions. Here’s what it means

Stablecoin giant Circle announced this week that it would be debuting a wrapped Bitcoin product: cirBTC.

The publicly traded company is aiming the asset — which will be backed 1:1 by Bitcoin — at institutions.

“cirBTC is designed to provide institutions with a highly secure and neutral version of wrapped BTC,” Circle said on its website.

The product will be available on Ethereum and Arc first, but will be “architected for a multichain future,” Circle said.

It comes as traditional financial players push further into the crypto space, showing interest and investing in products and protocols related to tokenisation and decentralised finance.

The product

Wrapped assets allow traders to use their Bitcoin holdings on other crypto networks via tokens that are one-to-one backed by Bitcoin.

It allows Bitcoin investors to interact with DeFi tools — which largely run on Ethereum — without having to buy other tokens.

Circle, which mints the second biggest stablecoin in existence, USDC, claims that its latest product will unlock “utility for institutional markets.”

Circle did not immediately respond to questions from DL News. 

Crowded market? 

A number of wrapped Bitcoin products already exist, including the original wBTC and crypto exchange Huobi’s hBTC.

The asset has had its controversies, too: In 2024, big players in the DeFi space expressed concern after crypto custodian BitGo announced it was working with BiT Global to help custody wBTC. Some said that Justin Sun’s involvement with BiT Global presented “an unacceptable level of risk.”

Coinbase ended up delisting the token and debuted its own wrapped Bitcoin, cbBTC.

Still, there is demand for Bitcoin on other crypto networks — including for institutions, Maple Finance’s Sid Powell told DL News.

“Circle already has strong infrastructure, broad distribution, and credibility across crypto and payments. If cirBTC integrates smoothly across DeFi, wallets and exchanges, it could become a meaningful player very quickly,” he said.

“There is still strong demand for Bitcoin liquidity in DeFi.”

Some, though, expressed concern over the product’s centralised nature. Richard green, managing director of institutional at Bitcoin infrastructure firm Rootstock Labs, told DL News that decentralised products were the best bet.

“This launch just trades one centralized middleman for another,“ he said. “In the conversations we’re having with institutions seeking to take their bitcoin from passive storage to productive capital, we consistently hear that they want decentralization.“

Wall Street’s DeFi push 

The idea with Circle’s cirBTC is that Bitcoin is used more on DeFi protocols, according to Rachel Mayer, VP of product at Circle and the Arc blockchain.

“Bitcoin is sitting on the sidelines of DeFi. Not because people don’t want yield or liquidity — it’s because they don't trust the wrapper,” she wrote on X.

“cirBTC is Circle’s answer: 1:1 backed, on-chain-verifiable, and built on infrastructure the market already trusts.”

Circle’s announcement comes as Wall Street titans show increased interest in the DeFi space. BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, in February said it was working with decentralised exchange Uniswap and had invested in its native token.

And Hyperliquid, a decentralised perpetual futures exchange, this month received the green light from the S&P Dow Jones Indices to debut a new contract giving traders exposure to the S&P 500.

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at [email protected].