tBTC Integrates with Arbitrum, Drawing on Wormhole Integration

Step Advances Mission to Open All of DeFi to Holders

SAN MATEO, Calif., May 30, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- tBTC, the decentralized, permissionless, and scalable Bitcoin equivalent, is now live on Arbitrum One, the most widely used Layer 2 scaling solution in the Ethereum ecosystem. This integration is facilitated by the Wormhole interoperability protocol and powered initially by liquidity from Balancer. 

Threshold DAO, the decentralized organization behind tBTC, said the integration with the Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain represents an important advance in its mission to bring Bitcoin everywhere - releasing the untapped potential of Bitcoin across all of decentralized finance (DeFi).

"This important integration with one of the leading cross-chain networks in DeFi promises to open a world of new opportunities to Bitcoin holders," said NuCypher Co-Founder and Threshold Contributor, MacLane Wilkison.

Following the integration, users will be able to bridge tBTC assets in dedicated pools on liquidity protocols like Balancer and Curve Finance. This will provide users more freedom to maneuver within DeFi, along with a wider spectrum of ways to put their Bitcoin to work.

The integration of Wormhole, approved last month by the Threshold community, has already been instrumental in opening new opportunities for Bitcoin users across DeFi. Threshold's ultimate objective is to make tBTC available on both Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains such as Arbitrum, Optimism and Polygon, and non-EVM chains (e.g. Solana, Aptos, Sui and Cosmos).

To do this, tBTC will employ a new method for bridging ERC-20 tokens that allows the efficient deployment of capital to Ethereum side chains without liquidity fragmentation.

Instead of creating wrapped tokens for each chain, soaking up valuable liquidity that could be used elsewhere, tBTC will be minted on Ethereum. A canonical token – i.e. one that is native to an ecosystem rather than wrapped – will then be deployed for each new chain. This way, the tBTC supply remains intact and risk is corralled in local ecosystems.

tBTC was introduced by Threshold Network to fill the urgent need to provide Bitcoin holders with a secure and decentralized path into the cross-chain ecosystem – accessing fast-growing chains like Arbitrum. By using decentralization and encryption rather than centralized entities to facilitate the process, tBTC eliminates single points of failure, in line with the cardinal values central to the Bitcoin ethos.

SOURCE Threshold