Chainlink’s cross-chain interoperability protocol (CCIP) now enables transfers of Coinbase’s wrapped Bitcoin token, cbBTC, from Base to the Monad blockchain, opening the door for more than $5 billion worth of cbBTC to move into Monad’s ecosystem.
Monad announced the integration Monday, saying the bridge brings cbBTC into its DeFi landscape where applications including Curvance and Neverland are already adopting cbBTC markets. The move introduces Bitcoin-backed liquidity to lending, borrowing and other decentralized finance use cases on Monad, an EVM-compatible layer-1 built for high-throughput trading and financial applications.
“As Bitcoin-backed assets grow into the tens of billions, the infrastructure moving them has to meet that scale,” said William Reilly, head of strategic initiatives at Chainlink Labs. He noted that CCIP was designed with multiple layers of decentralized validation to reduce cross-chain risks and preserve consistent 1:1 backing across networks.
Monad positions itself as infrastructure for transaction-intensive finance, touting throughput up to 10,000 transactions per second and sub-second finality. The cbBTC integration lets users and protocols on Monad access Bitcoin liquidity without relying on native BTC, supporting a range of DeFi products.
Coinbase launched cbBTC in September 2024 as a wrapped Bitcoin token on Ethereum and Base, backed 1:1 by BTC held in custody and designed to mint and redeem automatically against Bitcoin deposits on the exchange.
The integration comes amid broader efforts to make Bitcoin a yield-bearing asset and extend tokenized Bitcoin across smart-contract ecosystems. Demand for Bitcoin yield strategies has been rising as institutions seek liquidity without selling BTC, and projects have explored proof-of-stake integrations and delta-neutral trading to generate returns while preserving exposure to Bitcoin.
Recent industry moves include Coinbase’s Bitcoin Yield Fund targeting institutional returns, Kraken’s Bitcoin staking product via Babylon Labs, WBTC’s expansion to the Hedera network, and new wallet vaults such as Telegram’s TON Wallet adding ways for users to earn yield on Bitcoin through DeFi infrastructure.
By enabling cbBTC transfers from Base to Monad via CCIP, Chainlink aims to reduce cross-chain friction and support the growing flow of tokenized Bitcoin into decentralized financial markets.
