Zest Protocol Unveils Mainnet Demo for Bitcoin Collateral Vaults
Zest Protocol has launched a mainnet demo for its Bitcoin Collateral Vaults, allowing users to deposit real BTC into self-custodial vaults on Bitcoin's Layer 1 and borrow real USDC against it.
This marks the first full public-mainnet deployment of Zest Protocol's native-Bitcoin collateral vault infrastructure. The vaults are enforced by Bitcoin's own rules and built for BitVM proof verification, eliminating the need to wrap or bridge BTC into other tokens.
The demonstration runs on mainnet with real BTC and USDC, capped per wallet. Users can test the full flow at a small scale: depositing BTC into an individual vault and borrowing USDC on Ethereum. Each vault holds one user's coins only, and the same coins come back on repayment.
Tycho Onnasch, Founder of Zest Protocol, said, 'We've spent five years on programmable Bitcoin, first on Stacks and now on Bitcoin itself. Today you can put real BTC in a vault on Bitcoin and borrow against it on mainnet.'
The mainnet demo also carries key lessons from two years of running the Zest Protocol Stacks Market, which reached over $100 million in peak TVL with zero bad debt and no lost BTC.