The Rise of Emerging Forces in the BTC Ecosystem: A Comparative Analysis of Asset Accumulation Strategies

With the evolution of the BTCFi narrative, the on-chain liquidity of BTC assets has become the focal point of major ecosystems and protocols. BTC is transitioning from a static store of value to an asset that can participate in more on-chain yield scenarios, significantly enhancing its application potential within the DeFi ecosystem.

Core, BOB, and Corn are representative growth cases in the BTCFi field recently: Core focuses on emerging BTC LST assets; Corn collaborates with Pendle to launch derivative gameplay for points to quickly capture the market; BOB attracts liquidity through enriched ecology and liquid staking services. The series of actions by each ecology around "yield generation" has greatly activated the liquidity of BTC assets.

1. Background

1.1 BTC asset flow path on the blockchain

The flow direction of BTC and its anchored assets on the chain can be divided into three levels:

1. Native BTC
2. Packaging BTC, BTC L2 and sidechain mapped assets, liquid staking BTC
3. BTC derivative assets in various DeFi scenarios

The current market status of 1.2 BTC assets

Centralized wrapped BTC still dominates, with WBTC and BTCB accounting for over 75% of the market share. LBTC and SolvBTC.BBN and other BTC LSTs have recently grown rapidly, becoming emerging forces.

BTC-backed assets are mainly used in lending protocols. WBTC and BTCB account for over 20% of the total supply in the TVL of Aave v3 and Venus protocols, reflecting the demand for stable returns from large funds.

The total volume of the BTC LST market is approximately 25.1K BTC, with Lombard and Solv Protocol accounting for over 70% share. In addition to lending, the points trading market has become an important downstream application.

2. Asset Accumulation Strategy of the BTCFi Ecosystem

2.1 Core: Focus on the dual drive of incremental assets and token incentives

Core is an L1 scaling solution driven by BTC, with a TVL of $591.5M, achieving a growth of 4757.9% over six months.

Growth Strategy:

1. Focus on the incremental market of BTC-backed assets, absorbing Solv derivative assets.
2. Build a native protocol and quickly integrate the BTCFi project to improve ecological applications.
3. Utilize the $CORE airdrop and market performance to support the incentive structure

2.2 Corn: The points derivative gameplay efficiently attracts BTC LST liquidity

Corn is an emerging ETH L2 network, with a current deposit activity TVL of $425.8M.

Growth Strategy:

1. Collaborate with Pendle to lead the BTC LST points derivative gameplay
2. TVL BootStrap Campaign attracts initial liquidity

2.3 BOB: Secure bridging and a strong ecosystem drive asset consolidation

BOB is a hybrid Layer 2 network, with a total TVL of $65.7M.

Growth Strategy:

1. Launch one-click liquidity staking service and ecological integration
2. BOB Fusion Incentive Program

3. Summary

Different network asset accumulation strategies have their own focuses: Core deeply integrates Solv Protocol; Corn collaborates with Pendle to promote points derivatives; BOB extensively integrates BTCFi projects.

The key to effectively realizing ecological fund accumulation lies in:

1. Connect and incentivize large-scale incremental anchored assets
2. Diversified DeFi applications form composable yield strategies
3. Provide multiple incentive expectations

Currently, the TVL of BTC-backed assets on L2 and sidechains is approximately 1.6 billion USD, accounting for 0.14% of the total BTC market cap. In the future, after the release of BTC liquidity, the BTCFi ecosystem still has significant growth potential.