BadgerDAO, RenVM Launch Bitcoin ‘Badger Bridge’

  • Ren has agreed to transition its wBTC.cafe bridge platform into the new Badger Bridge, enabling users to mint renBTC and wBTC directly onto the Badger platform.
  • The new Badger Bridge should eliminate a number of steps when it comes to earning DeFi yields with Bitcoin.
Bitcoin on bridge

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DeFi project BadgerDAO now allows its users to easily convert their native Bitcoin to renBTC and wBTC with “one click” thanks to an integration with RenVM, BadgerDAO said in a blog post on 26 April.

According to the announcement, the new Bitcoin-to-Ethereum bridge will give DeFi users direct access to bringing their Bitcoin onto the Badger app, by enabling them to mint renBTC and wBTC directly onto the platform. This integration should eliminate a number of steps when it comes to earning DeFi yields with Bitcoin. The team behind BadgerDAO said in the blog post:

“What used to be an arduous process to obtain yield on your Bitcoin is now just a few short clicks. With the launch of the Bridge within the Badger App, we have taken a significant step towards realizing the Badger mission of being the one-stop shop for users to put their Bitcoin to work.”

As part of the integration, the Ren Project agreed to transition its widely used BTC bridge platform wBTC.cafe into the new Badger Bridge, effectively redirecting the wBTC.cafe traffic to the Badger Bridge, though Ren will continue to provide the infrastructure for the swaps. The blog post also claimed that the wBTC.cafe platform was able to successfully mint over 25,000 BTC — equivalent to around $1.3 billion in token conversions — since June 2020.

In order to make the Badger Bridge even more attractive, the Badger team decided to launch what it calls the largest incentive program, named “The Bridge Mining Program”, used to bridge BTC to Ethereum. The program will allow users to earn almost 6 million in BADGER rewards for simply using the bridge to transfer up to 100,000 BTC (around $5 billion).

Back in February, BadgerDAO partnered with DeFi project Yearn.Finance to further strengthen the security of its vaults, and allow it to build high-yield vaults even without the distribution of governance tokens. As part of the partnership, Badger agreed to migrate its synthetic BTC vault balance to Yearn, with the Yearn vault displaying in the Badger app.

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June 18, 2021, 11:05 AM
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