Citrea Mainnet Is Live - Enabling Bitcoin to Be Used for Lending, Trading and Settlement
Bitcoin is the world’s largest digital asset, yet its potential as a financial instrument has remained dormant. Bitcoin users have historically been forced to move liquidity off-Bitcoin or trust centralized black boxes to access broader financial activities.
That ends now.
Citrea Mainnet is officially live.
We are launching the first application layer purpose-built to activate Bitcoin capital markets. Citrea is the first to bring utility, demand, and liquidity to Bitcoin, enabling institutions and individuals to lend, trade, and settle directly on the Bitcoin Network.
Arrival of Bitcoin’s Application Layer: cBTC, ctUSD and ₿apps
Citrea’s launch is a major leap forward in Bitcoin’s evolution. As the demand for BTC grew, the need for Bitcoin applications became more prominent. Previous attempts to build an ecosystem for Bitcoin were forced to compromise, either sacrificing programmability or relying on heavy trust assumptions that hindered adoption.
Citrea Mainnet marks a new beginning: an end-to-end Bitcoin ecosystem that relies solely on the Bitcoin Network as its source of truth. What makes Citrea’s underlying technology truly unique is the combination of enabling the first trust-minimized BTC on a fully programmable Bitcoin layer and a direct economic contribution to the Bitcoin Network.
Citrea BTC (cBTC): Verifiable by Bitcoin via ZK and BitVM
Historically, Bitcoin bridges have often relied on multi-signature setups (e.g., 3-of-5), requiring users to trust a small group of signers. Citrea’s trust-minimized bridge, Clementine, fundamentally shifts this security model by removing the need for trusting custodians or honest majority federations. Using BitVM and zero-knowledge technology, cBTC debuts as the first trust-minimized BTC on a fully programmable Bitcoin layer.
- Optimistic Verification: cBTC is verified optimistically by the Bitcoin Network. Any fraudulent bridge activity can be detected and challenged on the Bitcoin Mainnet with at least one honest party present.
- Total Programmability: For the first time, users can trade privately, provide liquidity, and earn yield on their BTC with minimal trust-assumptions. Citrea’s composable ecosystem allows cBTC to move across different apps seamlessly.
Clementine bridge signers consist of reputable infrastructure companies. Safety of peg mechanism is enforced by the Bitcoin Network, assuming the presence one honest signer. Clementine bridge signers are publicly disclosed.
Learn more about Clementine bridge and cBTC.
Get your first cBTC via the Citrea Bridge Hub!
Citrea USD (ctUSD): Native Stablecoin for Bitcoin
For Bitcoin capital markets to thrive, they require deep, native and unified stablecoin liquidity. Serving this need, ctUSD establishes the native liquidity standard for the Bitcoin ecosystem and provides banking rails between on-chain Bitcoin collateral and off-chain fiat systems.
Issued by MoonPay and powered by the M0's open stablecoin network, ctUSD is designed for institutional-grade compliance. It aligns with forthcoming GENIUS Act guidelines and is available to users in the U.S. (excluding NY) and over 160 countries worldwide (excluding Canada and the EEA).
Be first to get ctUSD via the Citrea Bridge Hub.
Bitcoin-Secured Applications: ₿apps
Citrea debuts with 30+ ₿apps that increase participation in the Bitcoin Network and drive economic value accrual.
Citrea mainnet ensures financial primitives in place:
- Bridge: https://citrea.xyz/bridge
- Trade: Access decentralized exchanges via Satsuma, JuiceSwap and Fibrous and provide liquidity.
- Lend: Engage in Bitcoin-native lending with Morpho and Zentra Finance (soon).
- Privacy: Private BTC payments and trading via Crest is arriving shortly.
- Prediction Markets: Signal is coming soon for BTC price predictions.
We’ll continue to roll out more applications in the next few weeks. Pools will deepen and ecosystem deployment will mature in the coming weeks. Specifically on the structured products side, Citrea's native offerings will leverage on-chain and off-chain strategies from premier digital asset institutions like Keyrock to deliver safe, transparent, BTC-denominated yields for Citrea users.
Stay tuned for more ₿apps and yield protocols!
How to Start: Citrea User Dashboard
Citrea Mainnet is launching with a comprehensive dashboard, where users can explore the ecosystem and track their journey on Citrea across categories.
Citrea User Dashboard provides a one-stop destination for all users to onboard and explore Bitcoin applications in the ecosystem. New ₿apps will roll out over time, expanding the dashboard to include more features and eventually evolving it into a standalone app for comprehensive user activity.
The dashboard shows user journeys in the following categories. From Day 1 of mainnet, activities in all live categories will count toward user progress, though that progress may not be first reflected until a later date:
There will be more applications added to each category. Stay tuned!
Visit the dashboard, view your past contributions, and start building your profile.
Citrea User Dashboard: app.citrea.xyz
What’s Next: Being the Leading Platform for Bitcoin Capital Markets
The launch of Citrea Mainnet is just the beginning of our journey. Citrea’s vision is to build the future of how the world interacts with Bitcoin. Our goal is to become the primary entry point for first-time Bitcoin users and provide users and institutions with capital-efficient ways to engage with Bitcoin, creating sustainable long-term demand and strengthening miner incentives through increased network activity.
We have a series of announcements revealing institutional partners, and other ecosystem players. Keep an eye out on our official channels and follow our journey as we define Bitcoin capital markets.