Circle (NYSE: CRCL) has opened a new path for institutions that want dollar liquidity without selling their bitcoin. Through Circle Mint, eligible clients can now pledge BTC as collateral and borrow USDC, keeping their long-term bitcoin exposure intact while tapping onchain credit markets.
The product is called Digital Asset-Backed Borrowing, or DABB.
It is available to qualifying Circle Mint LLC customers on Ethereum and on Arc,
Circle’s recently launched layer-1 network. New York clients are excluded, and access remains subject to jurisdiction and eligibility rules.
The process is designed as a single coordinated workflow.
A customer deposits bitcoin and mints Circle Wrapped Bitcoin, or cirBTC. Each cirBTC token is backed one-to-one by native BTC held in custody at Circle National Trust, a federally chartered trust bank.
Reserves can be verified onchain.
The customer then supplies that cirBTC as collateral through a wallet they control into a supported third-party lending market.
Borrowed USDC is credited directly to the customer’s Circle Mint balance.
Repaying the loan releases the collateral.
Circle does not set the loan terms.
Borrowing rates, collateral ratios, liquidation thresholds, liquidity, and availability are determined by the chosen market and can change.
Positions are overcollateralized. Morpho is the first supported lending protocol.
Circle has said it expects to add others, including Aave, over time.
The company presents cirBTC as institutional-grade collateral.
Circle does not run a competing exchange or lending venue, so it describes the token as strategically neutral.
Combined with USDC and Circle Mint, it is meant to give treasury teams a consistent route from bitcoin custody to tokenized collateral to dollar liquidity, without stitching together separate wrappers, bridges, and protocol interfaces.
Arc and Ethereum offer different operational trade-offs. Arc places cirBTC and USDC inside Circle-designed infrastructure for stablecoin finance.
Ethereum gives access to deeper, more established onchain lending markets.
Teams can choose the network that fits their costs, controls, and risk framework.
For institutions that treat bitcoin as a core treasury asset, the offering is meant to reduce a familiar friction: selling BTC simply to raise cash.
They can keep the bitcoin position, use it as collateral, and receive USDC inside an account they already use.
The underlying market risk, including liquidation risk, stays with the third-party protocol. Eligible Circle Mint customers can open a DABB position now. Institutions that are not yet on the platform can apply for access.
