Bitcoin Coming to Solana with Wormhole Integration

Threshold DAO has approved a proposal advanced by Wormhole to build cross-chain Bitcoin liquidity by incentivizing the minting of tBTC. This program is set to establish tBTC as the dominant form of BTC in on-chain DeFi by integrating with the Wormhole Token Bridge and enabling tBTC to be sent across as many as 20+ Wormhole-connected chains.

Historical Risks of Centralized Wrapped Bitcoin

Wrapped Bitcoin has faced issues regarding centralization risk, which has slowed its adoption and prevented a true feeling of trust in on-chain Bitcoin DeFi. Centralized solutions of wrapped BTC not only go against the core principles of decentralization but also add significant risk to using Bitcoin in DeFi applications due to centralized, counterparty risk.

The Decentralized tBTC Solution

tBTC, a decentralized, permissionless, and scalable Bitcoin equivalent, was introduced by Threshold Network to address the urgent demand for a decentralized path for bringing Bitcoin on-chain. tBTC utilizes Threshold Signatures to ensure decentralization and security. Users lock their BTC in a secure, trustless deposit on the Bitcoin blockchain, creating a corresponding tBTC token on the Ethereum network. This process is facilitated by a group of randomly selected, bonded signers in a decentralized and trustless manner.

tBTC Expansion through Wormhole Integration

Wormhole proposed the incentive program to the Threshold community with the objective of making tBTC the dominant BTC proxy in on-chain DeFi. The Wormhole integration will enable tBTC to be transferred to both Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains, such as Arbitrum, Optimism, and Polygon, and non-EVM chains like Solana, Aptos, Sui, and Cosmos. The integration relies on a new method for bridging ERC-20 tokens that enables efficient capital deployment to Ethereum L2s without liquidity fragmentation.

About tBTC and Threshold DAO

tBTC is a decentralized, permissionless, and scalable Bitcoin equivalent that allows users to access the Ethereum and cross-chain DeFi ecosystem. Threshold DAO, the network behind tBTC, replaces centralized intermediaries with a randomly selected group of node operators who secure your deposited Bitcoin through threshold cryptography. Visit https://threshold.network/ for more information.

About Wormhole

Wormhole is the industry standard cross-chain messaging protocol powering applications across Web3. Wormhole provides developers access to liquidity and users on over 20 of the leading blockchain networks, enabling use cases that span DeFi, NFTs, governance, and more. Wormhole Connect is an in-app bridging widget that can be integrated in as few as 3 lines of code. The wider Wormhole network is trusted and used by teams like Circle (USDC) and Uniswap.