Circle Internet has launched cirBTC, a wrapped bitcoin token backed 1:1 by BTC +1.36% , now live on Ethereum. The product positions the USDC issuer as a direct competitor to Coinbase’s cbBTC and BitGo’s wBTC in a synthetic bitcoin market currently worth between $12.5 billion and $13.5 billion.
The pitch is straightforward: bitcoin holders want DeFi exposure – lending, DEXs, tokenized assets, stablecoins – but Bitcoin’s native network lacks the programmability to support it. Wrapped tokens solve that by moving BTC value onto programmable chains like Ethereum. Circle is not the first to do this, and the market knows it.
wBTC got there in 2019 and still leads with a $7.3 billion market cap . Coinbase’s cbBTC, launched in 2024, sits at roughly $5.4 billion . cirBTC enters as a third institutional-grade option, and Circle’s main argument is trust transfer: institutions already using USDC +0.01% – which holds over $75 billion in market cap as the second-largest stablecoin – know Circle’s infrastructure and compliance posture. That familiarity is the go-to-market strategy.
The timing is deliberate. Circle went public on the NYSE earlier this year under the ticker CRCL. Adding cirBTC to the product suite expands its DeFi footprint and diversifies revenue beyond stablecoin issuance. For institutional allocators with a bitcoin-only mandate, Circle now offers a familiar on-ramp into yield-generating DeFi without forcing a shift to unfamiliar infrastructure.
What Circle is really selling is not a better wrapped BTC – it’s a more defensible custodial relationship at a moment when the institutional DeFi market is growing. Whether that brand advantage translates into market share against two entrenched incumbents is the question the next six months will answer.
