Lombard Finance acquires BTC.b, Avalanche’s bridged bitcoin asset, from Ava Labs

Lombard Finance, the Bitcoin DeFi protocol behind LBTC, has acquired BTC.b, Avalanche's bridged bitcoin asset infrastructure, from Ava Labs. BTC.b, which has a market cap of about $502 million and is integrated across protocols like Aave and BENQI, will remain operational on Avalanche but transition to Lombard's technical infrastructure.

Ava Labs stated the move allows them to focus on core blockchain development, while Lombard views the acquisition as advancing its goal of building onchain bitcoin capital markets. Lombard co-founder Jacob Phillips noted that this positions them to capture market share as Bitcoin adoption grows. With both BTC.b (non-yield) and LBTC (yield-bearing), Lombard is now the only platform offering both types of permissionless, cross-chain bitcoin assets, addressing a gap where centralized alternatives like WBTC lack permissionless minting.

The transaction discussions began in Q2 and are expected to close before year-end, with no financial details disclosed. Lombard plans to drive BTC.b's growth across chains using the Lombard SDK.

(Source：The Block)