Circle launches cirBTC on Ethereum to compete in the synthetic Bitcoin market
- Circle’s wrapped Bitcoin, cirBTC, is now live on Ethereum, backed 1:1 by Bitcoin.
- The market cap of all synthetic Bitcoin tokens is between $12.5 billion and $13.5 billion, about 1% of Bitcoin’s total value of $1.25 trillion.
- Circle aims to attract institutional investors familiar with its stablecoin infrastructure, as its USDC is the second-largest stablecoin with over $75 billion in market cap.
- Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) remains the largest synthetic token with a market cap around $7.3 billion, while Coinbase’s cbBTC has nearly $5.4 billion.
The introduction of cirBTC allows traders to utilize their Bitcoin wealth in DeFi applications like lending and decentralized exchanges, addressing the limitations of using Bitcoin directly for these activities.
With cirBTC now available, Circle is positioned to challenge Coinbase and BitGo Holdings for dominance in the institutional synthetic BTC sector, as the combined market cap of synthetic tokens approaches $13 billion.
