The Problem
Your Financial Life Is Public
Right now, if you deposit Bitcoin on any lending protocol — Aave, Compound, Blend — anyone in the world can look up your wallet address and see:- Exactly how much BTC you deposited as collateral
- Exactly how much USDC you borrowed
- Exactly where the price needs to drop before your position gets liquidated
- Every time you borrowed, repaid, or adjusted your position
Bitcoin in DeFi Requires Either a Custodian or Exposure
Bitcoin is the world’s largest crypto asset by market cap. Yet participating in DeFi with it forces a choice between two bad options:Option A: Give your BTC to a custodian
WBTC is held by BitGo. One company controls the keys. BitGo can be hacked, regulated, or go bankrupt. In 2023, concerns about custodianship triggered $1B+ in WBTC redemptions in a single week. tBTC uses a threshold signature network. A sufficient coalition of signers could theoretically collude. The trust assumption is distributed, but it is still a trust assumption. Stacks sBTC uses a committee of signers to peg and unpeg BTC. The peg mechanism relies on off-chain coordination that must be trusted. In every case, you are trusting humans with your Bitcoin.Option B: Accept total public visibility
If you use an on-chain Bitcoin derivative — sBTC on Stacks, RBTC on RSK — your position is public. Your collateral. Your debt. Your liquidation threshold. All visible to anyone watching the blockchain. Institutional players don’t accept this. They won’t put $1M of BTC collateral into a protocol where every competing fund can see their position. Privacy isn’t a feature request — it’s a table stake for serious capital.The Market Left 900 Million People Behind
An estimated 77% of Bitcoin holders have never participated in DeFi. Not because they don’t want yield on their BTC. Because:- They don’t want to give up custody.
- They don’t want their financial activity broadcast publicly.
- The UX of wrapped BTC across multiple chains is too complex.
What Doesn’t Exist Yet
There is currently no protocol that is simultaneously:- Trustless — BTC secured by Bitcoin Script itself, not by any human or committee
- Private — position amounts hidden behind zero-knowledge proofs
- On Stellar — where native USDC lives and compliance-grade privacy infrastructure exists
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