Circle Launches BTC-Backed Lending Service for Institutional Clients

Circle has launched Digital Asset-Backed Borrowing (DABB), a lending service for institutional clients. DABB allows eligible Circle Mint clients to borrow USDC stablecoins without selling their underlying Bitcoin assets.

The service uses Circle Wrapped Bitcoin (cirBTC) as collateral, which is backed 1:1 by native BTC. cirBTC was launched in April and added to the Ethereum network in June.

Eligible clients can mint cirBTC from their deposited BTC and use it to borrow USDC through third-party lending protocols like Morpho. The service initially operates on the Arc and Ethereum blockchain networks, with plans to add support for other protocols, including Aave.