Circle Now Lets Institutional Clients Borrow USDC Against Their Bitcoin

Circle, the company behind the $USDC stablecoin, has launched a service that lets institutional customers borrow dollar-pegged tokens against their bitcoin holdings—the latest push by a crypto firm to court treasury departments that want liquidity without giving up their crypto.

The product, called Digital Asset-Backed Borrowing, or DABB, is now available to eligible Circle Mint customers, the company said. Clients based in New York are specifically ineligible, per the announcement.

Under the offering, customers deposit bitcoin and receive Circle wrapped bitcoin, or cirBTC, a token Circle says is backed one-to-one by the underlying coin. They then supply the cirBTC as collateral in a third-party lending market, through a wallet they control, and borrow $USDC, which is credited to their Circle Mint balance. Repaying the loan releases the collateral.

Circle’s Bitcoin-Borrowing Playbook

Circle said the service consolidates steps that have historically been cumbersome. Bitcoin does not natively work with the smart contracts that power onchain lending across Ethereum and other networks, so borrowers have had to choose a wrapped version of BTC, move between platforms, and navigate protocol interfaces before settling funds back into an institutional account.