Circle announced plans to introduce cirBTC, a new wrapped Bitcoin token aimed at institutional clients. Revealed on Thursday, cirBTC will be issued on Ethereum and fully backed 1:1 by bitcoin (BTC). Circle says the token is intended for over‑the‑counter desks, market makers and lending protocols and described it as a “highly secure and neutral” wrapped BTC offering for institutions. Circle also plans to support cirBTC on its layer‑1 blockchain Arc and distribute it via its Circle Mint platform. Cointelegraph reached out to Circle for additional comment but did not receive an immediate response.
The move positions Circle against existing providers in the wrapped‑BTC space, most notably BitGo’s Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) and Coinbase’s cbBTC. Coinbase launched cbBTC in September 2024; that token has an estimated market capitalization of about $5.9 billion and a supply near 88,800 tokens. BitGo’s wBTC remains the largest product, with roughly $8 billion in market capitalization and about 119,157 tokens outstanding, though that circulating supply is roughly half its November 2021 peak.
Other exchanges have issued wrapped‑BTC variants as well, including Kraken (KBTC), Gate (GTBTC), Binance (BBTC), Huobi (HBTC) and OKX (XBTC), but their market capitalizations are much smaller than the two leaders. CoinGecko data put the combined supply of wBTC and cbBTC at approximately 208,000 BTC.
Institutional investors, who have emerged as significant Bitcoin buyers, are increasingly exploring decentralized finance. Wrapped versions of BTC enable the asset to be used on Ethereum and other smart‑contract platforms, opening access to DeFi protocols, lending services and market‑making activity.
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