Pillar Project today launched the new WBTC.cafe feature, a fruit of its partnership with Ren Protocol. Through the integration of the RenVM into Pillar Wallet, users are now able to seamlessly exchange their BTC for WBTC and hold or use this tokenized representation of Bitcoin in the Pillar smart wallet and its in-app services.
“Smart-contract accounts allow us to offer far better functionality and security, and we’re excited to provide this to Bitcoin users across the globe. Thanks to our new feature users will now be able to confidently explore the wider Ethereum ecosystem and interact with DeFi, DEXes, dApps and other, previously unavailable to them, services,” says Michael Messele, Chief Executive Officer of Pillar Project.
This passing year the industry saw a sky-rocketing rise in the supply of tokenized Bitcoin on the Ethereum network. It became one of the largest assets in DeFi with 141,289 BTC on Ethereum, worth almost $2.7 billion (as of 22nd Dec 2020). And this number is only expected to increase in the coming months through compatibility with DEXes, yield farming and lending protocols, BTC is considered to be a more productive asset when used in the Ethereum ecosystem.
The Bitcoin community still lacks easy ways to onboard themselves to Ethereum. With these users in mind, Pillar Wallet, which aims to be a mobile gateway to DeFi services, teamed up with Ren Protocol to integrate the WBTC.cafe, powered by Ren Virtual Machine (RenVM), into their mobile app.
“The seamless movement of BTC to and from Ethereum has seen real utility within DeFi up to this point. Now with the advancement of Pillar Wallet’s great user experience, it will only further catalyze this trend and allow everyday users to take advantage of BTC in DeFi,” says Michael Burgess, Chief Operations Officer of Ren Project.
The Cafe is a shining example of DeFi composability and RenVM’s ability to bolster greater utility for all of DeFi. The collaborative effort of three DeFi Projects: Ren, Curve, and WBTC – all offered in an intuitive mobile experience with Pillar Wallet.
This release offers a direct BTC -> WBTC swap, but this will soon be expanded to other RenVM compatible assets, starting with renBTC – a more decentralized alternative to the most popular Wrapped Bitcoin. Pillar’s ultimate goal is to provide similar on-ramps to many more crypto communities, not only Bitcoin.
Starting today users are able to deposit their BTC on a dedicated address and receive the equivalent of WBTC in their Pillar Wallet. Thanks to its smart contract-based technology and contrary to existing Bitcoin wallets, it will be possible to recover their holdings in the event of a private key or mobile device loss, all thanks to Pillar’s Web Recovery Portal.
Newly acquired WBTC can be also “put to work” through other Pillar’s in-app services – deposited in Aave’s lending protocol to earn interest, streamed through Sablier, used across hundreds of dapps via WalletConnect or seamlessly swapped on Uniswap or 1inch through the in-app exchange.
About Pillar
Pillar Project is an open-source foundation that is designing and developing an intuitive platform to interact with the services of the emerging web3 digital economy. Its main product, Pillar Smart Wallet is the first community-run mobile cryptocurrency wallet with its own Layer2 Payment Network.
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About Ren
Ren is an open protocol that enables the movement of value between any blockchain.
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