The Core Foundation on Thursday unveiled LstBTC, an ERC-20 liquid staking token pegged 1:1 with Bitcoin (BTC), aiming to solve a longstanding dilemma for Bitcoin holders: the choice between earning staking rewards and maintaining liquidity.
This allows BTC holders to earn daily rewards in CORE tokens while keeping their Bitcoin liquid for use in decentralized finance (DeFi) applications at the same time.
Speaking with Decrypt, Rich Rines—an initial contributor to Core DAO—said that Bitcoin makes up half the crypto market cap yet represents a tiny fraction of DeFi activity. This is in part because there hasn't been a sufficiently promising asset in terms of yield, security, and Bitcoin alignment, he said.
LstBTC can be that asset, according to Rines.
LstBTC addresses a key challenge in the crypto space by eliminating the trade-off between staking and liquidity. Traditionally, staking Bitcoin often required locking up assets, making them unavailable for other uses. LstBTC preserves Bitcoin's value while offering staking benefits.
“LstBTC will enable those stakers to take the next step in their BTCfi journey, transitioning from mere yield-bearer to full-on Bitcoin user,” Rines said. “Given the upside, LstBTC may quickly become the dominant BTC DeFi asset.”
Rines said he believes that LSTs are the missing ingredient in Bitcoin DeFi, and the introduction of LSTBTC will help kickstart Core's ecosystem. With LSTBTC, the Core ecosystem is expected to attract new builders, launching their own LSTs on Core.
Notably, LstBTC’s operation involves a multi-sig setup on the Bitcoin network, meaning it’s managed by multiple entities, and undergoes security audits, according to Core. While this approach is used in various established protocols, it does introduce additional parties into the process compared to holding Bitcoin directly.
The introduction of LstBTC comes at a time of growing interest in Bitcoin-based financial products.
Asked about this trend, Rines said, “It's become clear that Bitcoin is the sun around which the rest of the industry revolves. For chains and projects that have otherwise been rather Bitcoin-agnostic, we're already seeing many return to Bitcoin as a focal point.”
This is not the first project to explore liquid staking for Bitcoin. Last year, Stroom Network launched a similar concept on Bitcoin's Lightning Network. Stroom raised $3.5 million in seed funding to develop a protocol that allows users to simultaneously use their Bitcoin capital on both the Lightning Network and Ethereum.