Circle debuts cirBTC on Ethereum to challenge Coinbase in the wrapped bitcoin market

Circle Internet’s (CRCL) wrapped version of bitcoin , cirBTC, is live on Ethereum as the company best known for its dollar-pegged stablecoin takes on Coinbase (COIN) for dominance of the synthetic $BTC market.

The New York-based firm said it developed cirBTC, a token backed 1:1 by the world’s largest cryptocurrency, to allow traders to access their bitcoin wealth in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols, including lending, decentralized exchange (DEXs), tokenized assets and stablecoins.

Synthetic, or wrapped, bitcoin tokens exist to address the historical lack of provision for DeFi activities on the Bitcoin network. Many cryptocurrency users prefer to hold only bitcoin because it is worth more than every other crypto combined. But using it for DeFi is challenging because that Bitcoin lacks the native programmability of networks like Ethereum.

The first token to cross the divide, wrapped bitcoin (wBTC), was introduced in 2019 and remains the largest, with a market cap of around $7.3 billion. Coinbase’s (COIN) cbBTC, which appeared in 2024, sits at just under $5.4 billion.

Circle is pitching cirBTC to institutions that may focus their crypto allocation on $BTC and are familiar with the company and trust its infrastructure due to its visibility in the stablecoin market. Circle’s USDC is the second-largest stablecoin on the market with a cap of over $75 billion.

The introduction of cirBTC could see Circle going head to head with Coinbase and wBTC’s primary custodian, BitGo Holdings (BTGO), for dominance of the institutional synthetic $BTC market.

The market cap of all synthetic bitcoin tokens combined hovers between $12.5 billion and $13.5 billion, representing about 1% of bitcoin’s total value of around $1.25 trillion.