Bitcoin-backed assets LBTC and sBTC are coming to Starknet and Sui, respectively, to offer BTC holders new options to access DeFi yields. These integrations provide bitcoin liquidity, allowing users to earn rewards while tapping into Starknet's zk-powered dapps and Sui's high-performance, parallel processing architecture — potentially double-dipping on yield.

— Macauley

Permissionless IV is hitting Brooklyn on June 24-26. Tix are $499 — but refer 5 friends to the 0xResearch newsletter and score a free Permissionless ticket. Scroll down to grab your code.

Timeboost is Arbitrum's new transaction ordering mechanism. It turns the way Arbitrum orders transactions from a first come, first serve basis to an auction-based fee market.

Since going live nearly a month ago, Timeboost has captured ~$321.4k of maximal extractable value, of which 97% will go to Arbitrum DAO’s treasury. Annualized, that is about $3.8m in additional revenue for the DAO.

Arbitrum DAO hasn’t yet decided whether the revenue will accrue to ARB stakers.

— Donovan Choy

0xResearch Arena: It's Going Down at Permissionless IV

We're bringing the signal to Brooklyn — with a side of chaos.

Hosted by the 0xResearch crew and Blockworks Research analysts, this space is where the smartest minds in crypto go head-to-head in live debates, blitz chess, pull-up challenges, and the occasional dunk tank.

High traffic. High energy. No takes left untested.

Think you’ve got alpha? Come prove it. 

📅 June 24–26 | Brooklyn, NY

Bringing bitcoin to the people

New forms of bitcoin liquidity are finding their way into emerging blockchain ecosystems, with recent integrations of Lombard’s LBTC and Stacks’ sBTC expanding opportunities for BTC holders in cross-chain DeFi.

On Starknet, a new partnership between the Starknet Foundation and Lombard Protocol will introduce LBTC, a fully bitcoin-backed liquidity token. LBTC maintains a 1:1 backing by native BTC reserves, which is bridged into Starknet DeFi.

Lombard, a protocol built on top of Babylon, receives BTC deposits, stakes them via Babylon and issues LBTC as a liquid representation of staked BTC. LBTC is intended to be multichain: available on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Sui, Genesis (Babylon) and others.

Led by Starkware CEO Eli Ben-Sasson, Starknet has positioned itself as a performant execution layer for Bitcoin, in addition to Ethereum. "Moves like this invigorate a whole new class of builders and users — people who want the credibility of Bitcoin and the creativity of DeFi,” he said.

The phased rollout of LBTC will initially focus on bridging and liquidity provisioning, followed by the introduction of staking options in Lombard-powered vaults. These vaults will enable LBTC holders to generate yield without surrendering custody of their underlying bitcoin.

While Babylon’s BTC staking is trust-minimized, LBTC introduces additional trust assumptions tied to how Lombard mints and manages tokens and bridges.

Meanwhile, Sui is preparing to integrate sBTC, the bitcoin-backed token native to the Stacks ecosystem.

The token uses a threshold-signature multisig secured by a set of 15 reputable institutional signers, with plans to gradually decentralize by integrating directly into Stacks' consensus mechanism.

The expansion will enable new opportunities for lending, borrowing and trading without compromising Bitcoin’s decentralization, according to Stacks founder Muneeb Ali.

Bypassing centralized custodians, “sBTC will be bridged to Sui via a trust-minimized, non-custodial process that preserves Bitcoin’s native security,” Ali told Blockworks.

“This collaboration lets us bring bitcoin to where the people are, and introduce more users to the growing bitcoin economy,” he said. Holders of sBTC on Sui will benefit from dual-yield opportunities: a base ~5% BTC reward merely for minting and holding sBTC, plus additional incentives from deploying the asset in Sui DeFi protocols.

The decision to integrate sBTC positions Sui as a new alternative hub for institutional BTCfi use cases — the network is already capturing significant bitcoin liquidity, with over 10% of Sui’s total TVL now originating from Bitcoin-derived assets, according to the Sui Foundation.

Both integrations signal a growing trend toward major L1 and L2s actively competing to onboard BTC liquidity to enrich their homegrown DeFi offerings. They are part of a trend shifting away from bitcoin derivatives relying on centralized custodians in cross-chain deployments. This should appeal to a subset of bitcoin holders who want to maintain self-custody while reaching for yield.

— Macauley Peterson

Avax farms on Euler:

Avalanche is handing out about $1m in AVAX incentives to both stablecoin borrowers and lenders on the lending platform Euler. 

$500k in incentives was first announced when Euler launched last month, and last week saw another $500k refill.

Yield-bearing stablecoins like Elixir’s deUSD and Avant’s savUSD can currently be looped through Euler for yields up to a whopping 144%.

Thanks to incentives, Euler has seen impressive TVL growth since deployment, to $96.6m. For context, that’s about 8x smaller than Aave’s total TVL ($768m) on Avalanche.

— Donovan Choy