Fireblocks has integrated the Stacks network, giving more than 2,400 institutional clients a direct path into Bitcoin-based DeFi. The institutional custody platform already secures over $5 trillion in digital asset transfers each year, so this move plugs serious capital into Bitcoin’s DeFi ecosystem.
Fireblocks users can now store Stacks (STX) tokens, mint and send sBTC, and use lending and trading protocols based on Stacks, all from the same interface they use now. This means companies, asset managers, and hedge funds can add Bitcoin to their yield strategy without changing how they track their assets or comply with the law.
Why Stacks Solves A Bitcoin DeFi Problem
Bitcoin’s base layer has an average block time of around 10 minutes, making real-time DeFi activity difficult for institutions that require faster settlement. Stacks serves as a Bitcoin layer for smart contracts, reducing block times to roughly 5–29 seconds while still settling transactions to the Bitcoin ledger for finality.
This design enables developers to build DeFi apps that operate like other high‑speed chains while inheriting Bitcoin’s security at the base layer. The launch of sBTC, a two‑way pegged asset that represents native BTC on Stacks, enabled the use of real Bitcoin in smart contracts, lending, and even paying gas.
Stacks’ Nakamoto upgrade, activated in late 2024, also improved finality and made transaction speeds comparable to those of leading Layer 2 networks, further reducing one of the main institutional objections to Bitcoin DeFi.
New DeFi Use Cases For Institutional Bitcoin
Through the Fireblocks–Stacks integration, institutions can now tap a growing list of Bitcoin-native DeFi use cases. These include “dual staking,” where users stake STX to earn BTC rewards, and BTC‑denominated yield from protocols such as Bitflow and Hermetica.
They can also access BTC-backed lending and borrowing via platforms such as Zest and Granite, using Bitcoin as collateral rather than selling it. All of this is managed through Fireblocks’ multi‑party computation (MPC) wallets and policy engine, ensuring every DeFi transaction still follows enterprise-approved workflows and compliance checks.
Bitcoin DeFi holds only a few billion dollars in value today, while more than $1 trillion in BTC sits largely idle. The Fireblocks integration aims to unlock part of that dormant capital by turning Bitcoin into a programmable, yield‑bearing asset for large institutions.
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