Proposal: Add support for WBTC to the Venus Core Pool on Unichain

Vanguard Vantage Team
1

Summary

This proposal aims to onboard WBTC (Wrapped Bitcoin) to Venus on Unichain. With WBTC now natively deployed on Unichain via LayerZero’s OFT (Omnichain Fungible Token) standard, Venus has an opportunity to integrate the leading tokenized Bitcoin asset into its latest network. This move will further increase the total value locked (TVL) in Venus and enhance asset diversity for users on Unichain.

Motivation

Market Acceptance

WBTC remains the largest Bitcoin-backed ERC-20 token, with a current market capitalization of approximately $13.4 billion (June 2025). It consistently ranks among the top 20 cryptocurrencies by market cap. Compared to other tokenized Bitcoin representations, WBTC leads in liquidity, trust, and DeFi integrations.

Money markets continue to attract the largest share of minted WBTC, as holders seek to borrow against their Bitcoin-backed collateral and access alternative yield opportunities. Venus Protocol, as the leading money market on Unichain, can capture a significant share of WBTC’s TVL as DeFi users bridge assets to Unichain for its low transaction costs and fast-growing ecosystem.

Asset Diversity

Currently, Venus on Unichain focuses on major stablecoins and ETH derivatives. Onboarding WBTC will give users a blue-chip, Bitcoin-backed collateral option for both borrowing and lending. This will diversify the pool’s risk profile and make Venus markets on Unichain more attractive to sophisticated users seeking to deploy BTC capital in DeFi.

WBTC Liquidity on Unichain

WBTC liquidity on Unichain has seen notable growth. According to recent data:

  • Total WBTC TVL on Unichain: approximately $60 million (DefiLlama, June 2025).

  • Top liquidity pools:

    • WBTC/USDC: $18.2 million TVL.

    • WBTC/USD₮0: $16.5 million TVL.

    • ETH/WBTC: $21.9 million TVL.

These figures reflect robust and growing demand for WBTC on Unichain, supported by attractive liquidity and a solid DeFi infrastructure.

Background

About WBTC

Launched by BitGo in January 2019, WBTC brings Bitcoin’s liquidity and brand to EVM-compatible chains, maintaining a strict 1:1 backing with Bitcoin held by qualified custodians. The minting process includes AML/KYC by authorized merchants, transparent proof-of-reserves, and robust custody standards.

Omnichain Expansion

In 2024, WBTC adopted LayerZero’s OFT standard, enabling seamless, native transfers of WBTC across integrated blockchains. This allows WBTC to move between chains (Ethereum, BNB Chain, Base, Avalanche, and now Unichain) using a secure, decentralized burn-and-mint model, verified by a decentralized verifier network (DVN) operated by BitGo. Importantly, all token contracts and supply logic remain under BitGo’s direct control, reducing risks associated with third-party bridges.

With WBTC’s native OFT deployment now live on Unichain, Venus Protocol can safely support WBTC as a collateral asset, benefiting from native cross-chain liquidity without custodial fragmentation.

Conclusion

Bringing WBTC Venus Protocol on Unichain aligns with the protocol’s strategy of expanding blue-chip collateral offerings across all supported networks. This integration will attract new TVL, broaden the protocol’s user base, and further position Venus as the premier money market on Unichain.

We invite the Venus DAO community to review and discuss this integration to maximize the protocol’s growth and competitiveness on Unichain.

4 Likes
2

Yes, I support this proposal to list Wbtc on unichain.

3

I completely agree that WBTC is a blue chip. We should increase the appeal of the Venus protocol precisely by adding such assets.

4

Overview

Chaos Labs recommends listing WBTC on Venus’ Unichain deployment. Below are our analyses and risk parameter recommendations.

Technical Overview

WBTC on Unichain is implemented as an OFT following LayerZero’s OFT standard, which enables seamless cross-chain transfers without traditional wrapping or bridging overhead. The WBTC contract on Unichain operates by burning tokens on the source chain whenever a transfer to another chain is initiated, then sending a LayerZero message to mint an equivalent amount of WBTC on the destination chain, maintaining a unified total supply across all networks where WBTC is deployed. This design eliminates the need for locking tokens in escrow contracts and reduces bridging complexity and costs to essentially the fee of an omnichain message. BitGo, as the custodian, maintains control over WBTC issuance and redemption, supported by a decentralized verifier network ensuring security and integrity of cross-chain transfers.

Usage on Venus

WBTC is listed on multiple Venus deployments, with the largest market on Arbitrum. Its total supply has been relatively steady in recent months while its borrows have been volatile, though quite low relative to the supply. This is to be expected, as we have historically observed little borrowing demand for BTC-linked assets.

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It is primarily used to borrow stablecoins, while it is primarily borrowed against gmBTC-USD.

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Market Cap and Liquidity

This WBTC contract has been live on Unichain since February, though it has only attracted activity recently, with its supply quickly growing to nearly 350.

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The asset’s on-chain liquidity has also improved in conjunction with the increase in supply and LP incentives on Uniswap. It is paired with about $25M worth of ETH and stablecoins.

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Liquidity may deteriorate once incentives are reduced or eliminated; we take note of this fact when making our recommendation.

Listing Parameters

Considering the above factors, we recommend listing the asset with the same collateral, IR curve, and oracle parameters as on the ZkSync deployment.

We recommend utilizing our usual methodology for supply cap, setting it at 2x the amount of liquidity available below the Liquidation Penalty, set to 10%. This leads to a recommendation of 400 WBTC; the borrow cap should be set to 10% of this value, given low demand for borrowing BTC-linked assets. We recommend listing the asset using RedStone’s BTC price feed.

Specification

Asset WBTC
Collateral Factor 77%
Liquidation Threshold 80%
Supply Cap 400
Borrow Cap 40
Kink 1 45%
Base 0%
Multiplier 0.09
Kink 2 -
Multiplier 2 -
Jump Multiplier 2.0
Reserve Factor 20%

Disclaimer

Chaos Labs has not been compensated by any third party for publishing this recommendation.