Lombard, a decentralized Bitcoin finance protocol, officially announced the acquisition of BTC.b from Ava Labs, marking the first acquisition of on-chain asset infrastructure in the history of the crypto industry. BTC.b is the leading Bitcoin asset in the Avalanche ecosystem, with a circulating market capitalization of approximately $550 million. Through this acquisition, BTC.b will exclusively run on Lombard's decentralized protocol architecture and become a non-interest-bearing asset in its product portfolio. Lombard co-founder Jacob Phillips stated, "Bitcoin is the world's largest crypto asset by market capitalization, but the majority remains idle. Acquiring BTC.b's infrastructure is an important step for Lombard in making Bitcoin more usable and efficient on-chain. The introduction of BTC.b expands Lombard's product portfolio, complementing LBTC and providing users with permissionless, non-custodial, and institutionally backed Bitcoin assets, offering decentralized users a new alternative to centralized asset packages. This collaboration combines Avalanche's liquidity foundation with Lombard's distribution capabilities, setting a new industry standard for Bitcoin."
Through this acquisition, Lombard will form a product portfolio consisting of two Bitcoin assets:
BTC.b — a permissionless, non-custodial Bitcoin asset that provides pure Bitcoin exposure and cross-chain composability;
LBTC — an interest-bearing Bitcoin asset that allows users to earn returns while maintaining their Bitcoin exposure.
The combination of the two provides institutional and individual users with flexible options, jointly promoting the practical application and financialization of Bitcoin in the DeFi field.
BTC.b will be fully migrated to Lombard's decentralized security architecture, adopting the same security and compliance standards as LBTC. The upgraded system will be secured by a decentralized consortium of 15 top independent digital asset institutions, integrate Chainlink CCIP for cross-chain bridging capabilities, and utilize Chainlink Proof of Reserve for transparent reserve verification—ensuring 1:1 verifiable on-chain collateralization of native Bitcoin. Notably, BTC.b's contracts, name, and existing integration relationships will remain unchanged, ensuring a smooth transition without impacting users or the protocol.
Following the acquisition, Lombard will continue to use Avalanche as the primary liquidity hub for BTC.b, and plans to further expand to the Ethereum mainnet, Solana, and MegaEth ecosystems after the migration is completed in the fourth quarter of 2025. Simultaneously, BTC.b will be integrated into Lombard's Vault product suite and SDK toolkit, which is already used by major platforms such as Binance and Bybit.
John Nahas, Chief Business Officer of Ava Labs, stated that BTC.b has been the most important Bitcoin asset on Avalanche since its launch, and this migration will safeguard its long-term growth potential and lay the foundation for cross-ecosystem expansion. Stani Kulechov, founder and CEO of Aave, pointed out that BTC.b is a widely used asset in the Aave market, and Lombard's infrastructure and distribution capabilities will further expand the application of BTC.b while maintaining the seamless experience users expect.
This acquisition marks a key step in Lombard's vision of building "Bitcoin Capital Markets Onchain" and represents a significant innovation in the crypto asset infrastructure space. Lombard will continue its commitment to driving on-chain productivity and verifiable financialization of Bitcoin through a secure, transparent, and permissionless architecture.
