Bitcoin Bankers Can’t Get Enough: Greed, Schemes & Giggles in Digital Gold Town

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Ah, my dear reader! It appears the world is but a spinning top wobbling more madly each day, as the moneyed gentlemen—the very ones who’ve never seen a physical coin smaller than a fist—now crave yield from Bitcoin (BTC). Where once a respectable institution might have considered it polite to sell an asset and be done, now, according to the venerable Ryan Chow, CEO of Solv Protocol, they clutch their BTC tighter than a babushka clutches her last potato, all the while scheming how to wring more rubles from it without parting ways. Is it greed? Is it innovation? Or is it simply Tuesday? 🥔💸

At the grand bazaar known as Token2049 in golden, sun-baked Dubai, Chow confessed—over what we must imagine was tea far too expensive for mortal men—that big institutions sniff after BTC yield as enthusiastically as a pensioner hunting for lost rubles in the sofa cushions. In the dark, miserable past (three years ago), extracting yield from Bitcoin was as feasible as convincing a Russian bureaucrat to do paperwork on time. But now, with sorcery like proof-of-stake (PoS) and delta-neutral alchemy, even the most nervous banker can grease the yield wheels without breaking a sweat.

The tech sorcerers have even conjured up Layer-1 and Layer-2 beasties with names like Babylon—no, not that tower, although confusion is excusable. With Babylon, BTC holders parade their coins, earning yield while offering security and liquidity for the PoS serfs. “Bitcoin is the grandmaster of all asset balls,” Chow said—sliding through syntax like a bear through honey—”Stake your BTC, secure the network, and maybe, lose only your sanity in the process.” 🐻💎

Lending emerges dominant BTC financial use case

According to Chow, institutions, upon entering the blinding light of crypto, cling to Bitcoin. With trembling hands, they loan it out, eager to snatch liquidity—like a merchant hocking his own mother’s nightgown—without selling. What melodrama! Coinbase now allows you to borrow up to $1 million against your Bitcoin. Dignity, apparently, remains uncollateralized. Meanwhile, Aave and Compound dangle instant borrowing before you, like sweets before a sugar-mad goblin.

Chow tips his grand ushanka to companies like Strategy (once MicroStrategy, now with fewer syllables, more BTC), applauding their “derivatives kind of use case.” BTC finance apparently now means holding lots of Bitcoin and occasionally exclaiming, “Look, I’m doing finance!”

Bitwise, the ever-diligent chronicler of numbers, revealed that public companies hugged their Bitcoin tighter than ever, stockpiling a veritable mountain—688,000 BTC! And this, mind you, without building a single new cathedral. The price hit $82,445 per BTC, making even the most modest stacker feel like a baron (or possibly a tsar, depending on the vodka consumed). Altogether, this stash reached a value of $56.7 billion—a figure so big even your grandmother’s abacus would fling its beads in terror.

As for the future, Chow peers mysteriously into the fog and divines that more than 100,000 BTC will join ecosystems like Solana. Use cases will multiply as shamelessly as rabbits at a summer dacha. “There should be more and more use cases come out,” he whispered, with the gravity of a man who regularly predicts next week’s lottery numbers. 🐇✨

Solv launches Sharia-compliant yield products

With a theatrical bow, Chow revealed the latest invention: a Sharia-compliant Bitcoin yield product, SolvBTC.core! Now you, too, can earn yield, secure the Core blockchain, and tiptoe delicately within the sacred halls of Islamic finance. “Sharia compliance is something that we prepared for a long time,” Chow explained, side-stepping regulatory banana peels with the grace of a Cossack at midnight. 🕌🍌

Already, over 25,000 BTC slumber within Solv’s protocol—a sum worth $2 billion, or several thousand magical carpets, depending on exchange rates. Now, Chow and his merry band of protocol wizards toil to engineer the grand architecture required by big institutions. There will be culture! There will be regulation! There will probably even be more conferences in Dubai, with free canapés and laughter echoing into the night.

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2025-05-01 17:28