Zest Unveils Native Bitcoin Borrowing Without Wrapping
Zest Protocol has launched its native Bitcoin borrowing service without wrapping or bridging. The public demo of the Bitcoin Collateral Vault allows users to deposit real Bitcoin into a self-custodial vault on Bitcoin L1 and borrow real USDC against it.
This marks the first full public-mainnet deployment of Zest's native-Bitcoin collateral vault infrastructure, which is built for Bitcoin Virtual Machine (BitVM) proof verification. The demo remains capped per wallet until external audits are completed, after which Zest plans a broader production rollout with institutional partners.
According to Tycho Onnasch, Founder of Zest Protocol, the service aims to 'turn Bitcoin from an idle asset into productive capital.' This is in contrast to decentralized finance (DeFi) approaches that require wrapping or bridging. The existing Stacks lending market previously reached more than $100 million in peak total value locked with no bad debt or BTC losses.