Bitcoin Collateral Vaults are in audit
135 vaults have now been opened on Bitcoin L1 since the mainnet demo went live on 23 September. At the start of October that number was almost 100.
Each vault holds native BTC on Bitcoin and borrows USDC on Ethereum against it. There's no wrapping or bridging, and BTC is never pooled. Every borrower gets their own single-user vault.
The vaults are now in audit. In parallel we're preparing the launch with BTC holders who want to earn yield on native BTC, stablecoin partners who fund the borrowing side, and a first yield strategy that brings the two together. Zest Protocol founder Tycho Onnasch presented Bitcoin Collateral Vaults at DeFinition, the institutional DeFi forum of TOKEN2049 week in Singapore, and was at Plan B in Lugano.
Stacks Market borrows hit ATH
Borrows on the Zest Protocol Stacks Market passed $40M on 9 October, a new all-time high. A day earlier Zest Protocol TVL came close to $130M, and on 11 October sBTC, STX and USDCx were 70%, 75% and 72% utilized. All three had never been that high at the same time.
In the second half of the month, large sBTC withdrawals pulled the market back. The Stacks Market went from $87.28M at the start of October to $70.51M at the start of November. Borrows still ended 69% higher, at $25.32M against $14.99M.
stBTC is now the largest asset on the market
More than 1,000 BTC was supplied on the Stacks Market on 12 October, counting sBTC and stBTC together.
stBTC supplied more than tripled over the month, from 133.95 to 405.4. At $31.62M, more value now sits in stBTC than in any other asset on the market. sBTC borrowed went from 73.51 to 201.79, so 81% of supplied sBTC is now borrowed.
100 BTC in the Levered Bitcoin Staking Vault in 7 hours
When the Levered Bitcoin Staking Vault reopened, capacity went from 20 to 100 BTC. The cap filled within 7 hours.
The vault runs on the Stacks Market and is separate from Bitcoin Collateral Vaults. Each loop deposits stBTC, borrows sBTC against it and stakes the borrowed sBTC into more stBTC. We've since brought capacity down to around 80 BTC to keep the yield high while sBTC was leaving the market, and the vault is still full.
Stacks Swap now runs inside Tenero
Swaps in Tenero now run on Zest Protocol Stacks Swap, with any Stacks token, a 0% aggregator fee and the best route across the Stacks DEXes.
Stacks Swap also got split routes. A large trade no longer loses capital by squeezing through one pool, because Stacks Swap can split it into several swaps that run side by side in one transaction. Zest Protocol Stacks Swap remains the best swap experience on Stacks.
ZEST on Bithumb
ZEST has been trading on Bithumb's KRW market since 12 October.
https://x.com/ZestProtocol/status/2109478509945192926
The month in short
October showed how much demand there is to put BTC to work. On Bitcoin L1 the vault count kept climbing while Bitcoin Collateral Vaults went into audit. On Stacks, borrows set a record and stBTC took the top spot on the market.
