citrea

The Bitcoin ZK-rollup project Citrea, backed by Founders Fund and Galaxy Ventures, has officially launched its mainnet, introducing DeFi lending, structured products, and the native USD stablecoin ctUSD, which uses BTC as collateral, aiming to bring "idle Bitcoin" into a complete DeFi and payment system.Citrea stated that the active DeFi liquidity at the initial stage of the mainnet launch is expected to reach $50 million. ctUSD is issued by MoonPay, pegged 1:1 to cash and short-term U.S. Treasury bonds, and is not a cross-chain asset but is natively issued on Citrea to reduce bridging risks and avoid liquidity fragmentation. The project has also sparked controversy: as block subsidies decline, should Bitcoin miner fee income be supported through non-payment uses like DeFi and stablecoins? Supporters argue that this is a sustainable source of demand, while opponents emphasize that Bitcoin block space should focus on simple, censorship-resistant payments.It is noteworthy that during the Citrea testnet phase, data availability usage once accounted for nearly 10% of Bitcoin's monthly data bandwidth, indicating that Rollup could have a substantial impact on Bitcoin's block space.

According to market news, the Bitcoin Layer 2 project Citrea, supported by Founders Fund and Galaxy, has officially launched its mainnet and introduced the native stablecoin ctUSD backed by M0 infrastructure.Citrea uses zkEVM to process transactions and writes zero-knowledge proofs onto the Bitcoin main chain, supporting financial applications such as BTC collateralized lending and structured products, with the goal of building a native Bitcoin financial market.

Supported by Founders Fund and Galaxy Ventures, the Bitcoin application layer Citrea has launched its native USD stablecoin Citrea USD (ctUSD), issued by MoonPay and backed by M0 technology, fully backed by U.S. short-term Treasury bills and cash.Despite Bitcoin's market capitalization exceeding $1 trillion, most capital remains in a passive store of value due to the lack of native yield generation and trading settlement infrastructure. Existing Bitcoin financial activities rely on bridged or externally issued stablecoins, leading to fragmented liquidity and increased risk. ctUSD provides a unified USD settlement layer for the Bitcoin market, supporting BTC-collateralized lending, trading, and settlement directly on the Bitcoin network without the need for bridging tokens.This stablecoin complies with GENIUS Act regulatory guidelines and can be used in the U.S. (excluding New York) and over 160 other countries.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, the Bitcoin rollup project Citrea has announced the completion of a $14 million Series A funding round, led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund, with participation from angel investors such as Erik Voorhees and Balaji Srinivasan. Citrea aims to leverage zero-knowledge (ZK) technology to transform Bitcoin into a programmable asset, introducing Ethereum-like smart contract functionality.Citrea adopts the BitVM computing model, making it compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine, allowing applications on Ethereum to be deployed on Citrea without modification.According to RootData, Citrea is a ZK rollup for Bitcoin and also serves as an execution layer based on Bitcoin. Every transaction that occurs on Citrea is fully protected by zero-knowledge proofs and verified through BitVM.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, the Bitcoin ZK Rollup protocol Citrea has deployed its BitVM-based bridge Clementine to the Bitcoin testnet.The Citrea team describes Clementine as a "trust-minimized bidirectional peg program," essentially a way to lock Bitcoin on the main chain and then mint an equivalent Bitcoin token for use on Citrea; to reverse this process, the token must be burned, after which Bitcoin can be withdrawn on the Bitcoin blockchain.Clementine leverages BitVM, a computational paradigm introduced by Bitcoin developer Robin Linus last year, designed ultimately to enable Ethereum-style smart contracts on Bitcoin while also paving the way for zero-knowledge computation.

ChainCatcher news, the first zk-Rollup project under the BTC ecosystem, Citrea, has officially opened its public test network, inviting developers and users to participate in the construction of its test network.

ChainCatcher news, according to CoinDesk, the Bitcoin ZK Rollup protocol Citrea has completed a $2.7 million seed round financing, led by Galaxy Ventures, with participation from Delphi Ventures, Taproot Wizards co-founder Eric Wall, and Avail co-founder Anurag Arjun, among others. Citrea plans to use zero-knowledge cryptography to help develop the DeFi and NFT ecosystem within Bitcoin.Citrea's ZK Rollup will be based on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which means developers will be able to migrate their applications built for Ethereum and other compatible networks. Citrea has not yet launched, but the team plans to release a test network in the next quarter.