By Eco research. Updated May 2026.
​

cirBTC is Circle's institutional wrapped Bitcoin, a forthcoming ERC-20 token redeemable 1:1 for native BTC held in segregated reserves and verifiable onchain. Circle announced cirBTC will launch on Ethereum and on Arc, Circle's purpose-built L1 for stablecoin settlement, with the waitlist open at circle.com/cirbtc. The product is "coming soon, subject to regulatory approvals" and inherits the compliance and transparency model already running behind USDC and EURC.
​

cirBTC is Circle's institutional wrapped Bitcoin token. Each unit represents one BTC held in segregated custody, with reserve attestations published on the same cadence as USDC. Circle has stated cirBTC will be available to vetted institutional clients through Circle Mint and will deploy on Ethereum and Arc first, with additional chains subject to regulatory review.
​

Circle, the issuer of USDC and EURC, framed cirBTC as the BTC complement to its stablecoin franchise. The product targets counterparties who already trust Circle's reserve model but want Bitcoin exposure on programmable chains. Per the cirBTC waitlist page, the launch market is OTC desks, market makers, lending venues such as Aave and Morpho, and corporate treasuries holding BTC on the balance sheet.
​

The token is not live as of May 2026. Circle described it as "coming soon, subject to regulatory approvals," meaning availability depends on jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction clearance similar to how EURC rolled out under MiCA.
​

cirBTC works the way USDC works, with BTC swapped in for cash. An authorized participant deposits native BTC with Circle's custodian. Circle mints the equivalent cirBTC on Ethereum or Arc. To redeem, the holder burns cirBTC through Circle Mint and receives native BTC back. Reserves are 1:1, segregated, and attested.
​

The mechanism follows Circle's existing stablecoin pipeline. The BTC sits with a regulated custodian. Onchain reserve proofs are published so any holder can verify backing without trusting an off-chain PDF. Circle has stated the same monthly attestation and third-party audit cadence used for USDC reserves applies to cirBTC. See Circle's transparency page for the current USDC attestation format that cirBTC will mirror.
​

Minting access is gated. Only KYC'd institutional accounts with a Circle Mint relationship can mint or redeem at par. Secondary trading is open. Retail users buy cirBTC on exchanges and DEXs the same way they buy USDC, but cannot create or destroy supply.
​

Circle launched cirBTC to give institutional clients a wrapped Bitcoin option that matches the trust profile of USDC. The existing wrapped BTC market is dominated by wBTC, with cbBTC, tBTC, and FBTC as alternatives. Each has different custodians and governance models. Institutional desks have asked for a Circle-backed option for years, and cirBTC fills that request.
​

The strategic logic is unification. A treasury that already settles in USDC through Circle Mint can now hold BTC exposure through the same operational pipeline, the same legal entity, and the same compliance team. That removes a vendor-management problem. Coinbase took the same approach when it launched cbBTC in September 2024, and the cbBTC supply crossed several hundred million dollars within months according to DeFiLlama.
​

For Circle, cirBTC also feeds Arc. Arc is Circle's stablecoin-native L1, and a Bitcoin-denominated asset on Arc opens BTC collateral to the lending and treasury apps Circle is courting to that chain.
​

cirBTC compares to wBTC, cbBTC, and tBTC on four dimensions that institutional buyers care about: issuer, custodian, backing model, and chain coverage at launch. Circle's offering is custodial like wBTC and cbBTC, attested like cbBTC, and explicitly institutional-first. tBTC is the outlier with threshold cryptography instead of a single custodian.

Sources: Circle, wBTC network, Coinbase, Threshold Network. See the deeper breakdowns at support/en/articles/15220188, support/en/articles/15220189, and support/en/articles/15220190.
​

cirBTC targets four institutional segments. OTC desks need wrapped BTC for cross-venue settlement without moving native BTC. Market makers need it for onchain hedging. Lending protocols such as Aave, Morpho, and Sky need a trusted collateral asset. Corporate treasuries holding BTC want programmable exposure without leaving the Circle compliance perimeter.
​

OTC desks already use Circle Mint for USDC settlement. Adding cirBTC to that flow means a desk can settle a BTC-for-USDC trade entirely through Circle, with both legs onchain, without bridging through a third-party wrapped token. Market makers benefit from the same single-issuer reduction in counterparty risk. Lending venues such as Aave and Morpho would list cirBTC as collateral once supply is deep enough, expanding BTC borrow markets beyond wBTC and cbBTC.
​

Treasuries are the slow-build segment. A corporate that holds BTC on its balance sheet, audited annually, can move that exposure to cirBTC to enable onchain treasury operations: collateralized borrowing, automated payments, programmatic rebalancing. The compliance story for an auditor is "we hold a Circle-issued token, 1:1 backed, attested monthly," which is easier to defend than custodied native BTC scripts.
​

cirBTC integrates directly with Circle Mint for primary issuance and redemption, and natively with Arc as a first-class asset alongside USDC and EURC. The integration means an Arc-native application can quote, settle, and route across BTC and stablecoin pairs without leaving Circle's infrastructure or touching a third-party bridge.
​

Circle Mint already handles USDC and EURC mint and redeem for institutional accounts. Adding cirBTC reuses the KYC, the bank rails for fiat onboarding, and the API surface. From a developer's perspective, the difference between requesting USDC and requesting cirBTC is the asset parameter. See support/en/articles/15220192 for the reserve mechanics, and the Circle Mint overview at /support/en/articles/15210359.
​

On Arc, cirBTC sits next to USDC and EURC. Circle has positioned Arc as the chain where institutions settle without paying gas in a volatile asset, and a Bitcoin-denominated token native to that environment widens what Arc applications can build: BTC-collateralized stablecoin loans, BTC payment rails, BTC treasury accounts. Eco Routes can route cirBTC across chains once secondary deployments are live, the same way Eco Routes already orchestrates USDC transfers across CCTP.
​

cirBTC is not live as of May 2026. Circle has published the waitlist at circle.com/cirbtc and framed availability as "coming soon, subject to regulatory approvals." A firm launch date has not been published. Initial chains will be Ethereum and Arc, with expansion subject to per-jurisdiction approval similar to EURC's MiCA rollout.
​

Institutional clients can join the waitlist now. Circle has indicated that early access will prioritize existing Circle Mint customers, which means OTC desks, exchanges, and treasuries already operating USDC settlement accounts are at the front of the queue. Retail availability follows secondary listings on exchanges and DEXs once supply seeds.
​

Regulatory approval is the gating step. Wrapped BTC sits in a different category from stablecoins under most frameworks, and Circle is engaging regulators on classification before scaling supply. The Circle transparency hub is the canonical place to watch for the first attestation, which will mark the live moment.
​

Eco Routes orchestrates stablecoin and asset transfers across 15+ chains. When cirBTC launches on Ethereum and Arc, Eco Routes will be able to route cirBTC the same way it routes USDC today, abstracting the chain-selection and gas-payment steps for applications that want to accept BTC-denominated payments without picking a bridge.
​

The fit is mechanical. Circle issues cirBTC; Eco Routes moves it. Applications building treasury automations, payment flows, or cross-chain lending against cirBTC collateral can plug Eco Routes in to handle the cross-chain leg without writing per-bridge integration code.
​

Sources and methodology. Product facts pulled from circle.com/cirbtc and circle.com/transparency on May 21, 2026. Wrapped BTC supply figures cross-referenced with DeFiLlama. cirBTC is pre-launch; specifics will refresh on first attestation.
​