Binance Labs invests in Bitcoin liquid staking project Lombard

Binance’s venture capital and incubation arm has invested in Lombard, the crypto project behind Bitcoin liquid staking token LBTC.

The investment will help Lombard expand LBTC into new chains. Lombard co-founder and head of strategy Jacob Phillips said in the announcement that the goal is to grow the decentralized finance environment on Bitcoin (BTC) by unlocking new opportunities for BTC holders.

Lombard launched its liquid staked token in August and is one of the projects aimed at bringing the benefits of decentralized finance to Bitcoin holders.

The platform’s DeFi-on-Bitcoin product has seen LBTC power yield strategies, institutional borrowing and lending across Pendle, Maple Finance and Morpho respectively.

“Lombard’s approach to integrating Bitcoin with DeFi meets the need for an open market, and LBTC’s rapid growth demonstrates users’ interest in gaining more benefits from their Bitcoin holdings,” said Andy Chang, investment director at Binance Labs.

According to Dune data, Lombard’s total value locked in LBTC currently stands at over $640 million. Meanwhile, according to details also shared on X, the liquid staking token has more than 13,000 holders.

The platform’s growth comes at a time when Bitcoin’s market cap has risen to over $1.3 trillion.

But the BTC DeFi ecosystem is still worth just over $1.3 billion. This amounts to around 10% of market capitalization and shows that the decentralized finance market on the flagship blockchain network is still largely untapped.

To unlock this idle Bitcoin liquidity, projects like Lombard and Solv Protocol are allowing BTC holders to benefit from staking, earning returns, and lending, among other products.