Key Takeaways:
Citrea officially went live on mainnet on January 27, 2026, becoming the first Bitcoin ZK-rollup to utilize zero-knowledge proofs for settlement directly on the Bitcoin blockchain.
The launch introduces cBTC, a trust-minimized wrapped Bitcoin, and ctUSD, a GENIUS Act-compliant stablecoin issued by MoonPay.
Over 30 dApps, including Satsuma, JuiceSwap, and Morpho, are live from day one, enabling native lending, trading, and settlement without traditional bridges.
Citrea, the highly anticipated Layer 2 scaling solution backed by Founders Fund and Galaxy, officially launched its mainnet yesterday, January 27, 2026. This milestone marks the debut of the industry’s first Bitcoin ZK-rollup, a technological breakthrough that promises to transform the world’s largest cryptocurrency from a passive “digital gold” store of value into an active, programmable financial platform.
Native Yield and Compliant Stablecoins
The mainnet launch is anchored by two critical assets designed to bootstrap liquidity. First is cBTC, a trust-minimized wrapped Bitcoin that allows users to utilize their BTC holdings within smart contracts while maintaining a verifiable 1:1 peg.
Second, and perhaps most significant for institutional adoption, is the introduction of ctUSD. Issued in partnership with MoonPay and powered by the M0 infrastructure, this stablecoin is fully backed by U.S. Treasury bills. Crucially, it is one of the first stablecoins explicitly designed to align with the GENIUS Act of 2025 (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins), positioning it as a regulatory-compliant settlement layer for the Bitcoin economy.
Citrea officially went live on mainnet
A “Day One” Ecosystem
Citrea has avoided the “ghost chain” problem by launching with a robust suite of over 30 decentralized applications (dApps) ready for immediate use.
Trading & Liquidity: Satsuma and JuiceSwap serve as the primary decentralized exchanges (DEXs), while Fibrous provides liquidity aggregation to ensure efficient trade execution.
Lending: Morpho has deployed a Bitcoin-collateralized lending market, allowing users to borrow against their cBTC without selling it – a long-awaited feature for Bitcoin maximalists.
Innovation: The ecosystem also features Crest, a privacy-focused payment protocol, and Signals, a decentralized market forecasting platform.
All these applications leverage BitVM for verification, meaning settlement and collateralization occur trustlessly on Bitcoin. A newly released, user-friendly dashboard allows institutional and retail users to track assets and explore the ecosystem seamlessly from the start.
The 2026 Bitcoin L2 Landscape
Citrea’s arrival shakes up a crowded Bitcoin Layer 2 sector that includes established players like Stacks and Merlin Chain. However, Citrea distinguishes itself through full EVM compatibility combined with true Bitcoin settlement. This allows developers to port existing Ethereum dApps to Bitcoin with minimal code changes while inheriting Bitcoin’s security guarantees – a feat previous solutions struggled to achieve without compromising decentralization.
Orkun Kilic, CEO of Chainway Labs (the developer behind Citrea), emphasized the magnitude of this shift: “Citrea transforms Bitcoin from a static store-of-value into an active financial platform. We are not just building another chain; we are unlocking the $1.5 trillion of capital that has been dormant for over a decade.”
A Watershed Moment for BTC DeFi
The successful deployment of Citrea is being hailed as the largest catalyst for “BTC DeFi” since the 2021 bull market. By enabling native yield generation, lending, and trading via zero-knowledge proofs, the network provides a viable path for institutional capital to remain within the Bitcoin ecosystem rather than wrapping assets for use on Ethereum or Solana. With partners like Keyrock exploring yield strategies and UltraYield building structured products, the infrastructure is now in place for Bitcoin to compete directly with smart contract platforms on their own turf.
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