Bitcoin × Cardano solutions — a facts-only comparison
Nine current approaches to connecting Bitcoin value or Bitcoin holders to Cardano, compared on the same factual axes — short answers in the grid, full verified detail in the cards below. This page deliberately contains no vote, no recommendation, and no value judgement; each fact is checked against public primary sources with dates. Corrections with a source are welcome.
Method: claims are verified at the source, not from social posts alone; self-attested claims that could not be independently confirmed are labeled as such. Findings are point-in-time (last full re-verification 2026-07-22; Karma / Bifrost / Alchemy rows updated and a Sundial row added 2026-07-23 after team corrections, the public Jul-22 exchange, and Sundial-Charms' Jul-16 withdrawal statement) and will change as these projects evolve.
| Solution | Type | In plain words | 1:1 BTC asset on Cardano? | Where the BTC sits | Who must be honest | Treasury ask | Status | Measured usage | Next market test |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bifrost (FluidTokens + Lantr) | Bridge | A public bridge whose vault is guarded by Cardano's stake pools | PLANNED | SPO-federation vault on Bitcoin | Majority of participating SPO stake | ₳12.33M — vote open (to ep647) | Testnet | 0 mints since 7/17 redeploy; stats blank | Public launch Q3 2027 (own plan) |
| Pogun | Credit market | A pawnshop with a safe-deposit box on Bitcoin | PLANNED | Locked on Bitcoin (borrower's own contract lock) | The two loan parties; planned bridge: 1 of N operators | Expired unratified (₳12.29M, ep633); now private | Pre-launch | Zero (site still coming-soon) | Bridge Q4 2026 (roadmap) |
| Alchemy (Sundial × Charms) — GA #141 | Structured products | A derivatives counter selling bets on BTC's price | NO | Unspecified (reserve enforcement on Bitcoin not defined) | Sundial/Charms custody | ₳10M — team announced 7/16 it will NOT proceed (on-chain vote still runs to ep646) | Stepped back | Zero (absent from DefiLlama); FIRE minting began on Bitcoin TESTNET (team, 7/16) | — (may revisit 'in the future' per the 7/16 statement) |
| Sundial Protocol (L2) | L2 + BTC yield | A Bitcoin-yield venue built as a Cardano L2 — works WITH bridges, is not one | NO | Native BTC in 'BTC Lockers' on Bitcoin (non-custodial per team) | Optimistic-rollup fraud proofs (L2 side); locker enforcement details unpublished | None for Sundial itself — Catalyst F13 funded (₳1.8M, 4/6 milestones) | Testnet | No public TVL; not on DefiLlama | Mainnet date unannounced |
| CSWAP BTC Karma | Attestation | A loyalty program for BTC holders (sign, don't move) | NO | Stays in the holder's own wallet | n/a (no custody transfer) | None (self-funded) | Phase 1 live | '22 stakers' (CEO, 6/27); ~$40k TVL (3rd-party); live figures: staking.btckarma.io | $KARMA emissions Jul 25 |
| BitcoinOS (Grail / BitSNARK) | Bridge (announced) | The 2024-announced 'trustless bridge' that never arrived on Cardano | PLANNED | Shipped pilot: custodian operators (despite 'no custodians' claim) | Claimed: 1 of N via BitSNARK challenge (unshipped) | None found (VC $10M + $BOS token) | Not shipped / dormant | No verifiable TVL; nothing circulates on Cardano | — (Cardano route re-scoped to partner Charms) |
| Rosen Bridge (rsBTC) | Bridge (live) | An Ergo-coordinated bridge: 10 'guards' share the vault key | YES | One Bitcoin address, jointly controlled by guards (threshold ECDSA) | ~7 of 10 guards (reputation-based, no guard collateral); watchers post collateral | No treasury ask; Catalyst-funded (3 completed grants, ₳1.75M) | Live (BTC since Jun 2024) | 2.04 BTC locked; ≈0.56 rsBTC circulating on Cardano; bridge TVL ≈$1.19M | Already live (expanding: Runes, Firo; Monero researched — awaits Monero's FCMP++) |
| anetaBTC (cBTC) | Wrapped asset | An exchange counter whose staff stopped showing up (receipts still circulate) | YES | Held by the operator group | The operators (custodial class) — currently unresponsive in public | None (community / ISPO era) | Asset live / project dormant | 1.35 cBTC supply; TVL ≈$89k (−93% from $1.29M peak) | — (V2 never left testnet) |
| wanBTC (Wanchain rail) | Wrapped asset | An outside company's shipping lane | YES | Held by Wanchain bridge nodes | The Wanchain node federation | None (commercial) | Rail live | ≈16.5 BTC ever bridged to Cardano | Already live |
Note on '1:1 BTC asset on Cardano?' — this column was renamed on 2026-07-23 after reader feedback (CSWAP) that 'BTC value' can also reach Cardano WITHOUT a wrapped 1:1 asset (e.g. as stablecoin liquidity issued against BTC collateral, the model Karma Phase 2 and Pogun describe). The column asks one narrow factual question: does a fungible 1:1 BTC claim asset circulate on Cardano? In every design the BTC itself never leaves the Bitcoin blockchain — 'YES' = a 1:1 representation is minted and circulates; 'NO' = none arrives (which is NOT a defect — several designs avoid it on purpose); 'PLANNED' = the concept includes one but nothing is shipped. See each card for nuance.
Project details (verified)
▸Bifrost (FluidTokens + Lantr)Testnet
1:1 BTC asset on Cardano? PLANNEDDesign: 1:1 fSAT on Cardano — testnet only today, nothing on mainnet
In plain words — Lock BTC in a vault secured by Cardano's stake pools, receive a 1:1 voucher (fSAT, renamed from fBTC in the Jul-17 preprod redeploy; 1 token = 1 sat) usable in any Cardano app; burn the voucher to get the BTC back.
Precisely — Optimistic bridge; FROST threshold signatures across a stake-weighted SPO set hold the locked BTC; a federated fallback mode exists; SPO participation is rewarded. Phase-2 ask (~Q1 2027) is planned for the public launch + subsidised operations.
Verifiable status (2026-07-22) — Public testnet since Apr 2026; preprod redeployed 2026-07-17 (verified on-chain); Catalyst F14 (₳739k) at 3 of 6 milestones signed off (M4 not yet submitted per the portal); 3 active public repos; no external audit firm named yet; zero fSAT minted on the redeployed preprod (Koios); the public stats page shows no metrics; '22 stake pools onboarded' per its join page.
Team positioning & the Jul-22 exchange (public posts) — On Jul 22 FluidTokens published its own comparison infographic ('BIFROST gives every Cardano dApp access to Bitcoin' — status checked Jul 21 per its footer), framing Bifrost as 'public infrastructure: a single bridge every Cardano dApp can integrate, build on, and extend', marking anetaBTC and BitcoinOS as DISCONTINUED and CSWAP/Karma and Alchemy as 'no transfer bridge'. CSWAP's CEO publicly rebutted in the replies: the document is 'biased', bridgeless designs are 'the future of Bitcoin DeFi', Pogun 'is no longer using a bridge according to their docs', and Karma is 'the only ones on mainnet with a solution' with 'zero funding and no institutional support'. Both are positioning claims by interested parties and are recorded as such; the Pogun-dropped-its-bridge claim is unverifiable today (pogun.io still publishes no docs).
▸PogunPre-launch
1:1 BTC asset on Cardano? PLANNEDNot in the credit market; its planned Q4 bridge would (primeBTC)
In plain words — Your BTC is LOCKED in a box that never leaves the Bitcoin chain and no custodian takes it; a 'mirror' of that locked BTC on Cardano lets you borrow stablecoins at a fixed rate; full repayment returns the exact same BTC (the same UTxO).
Liquidation model — No price-triggered liquidation and no oracles: default is caused only by a missed payment followed by an expired cure window — 'two conditions, both about payment, neither about price' (team post, Jul 18). Lenders set collateral/LTV/duration/rate per 'Desk' and approve each borrower individually.
Verifiable status (2026-07-22) — pogun.io is a coming-soon page: no docs, no public repository, no contract addresses. The team posted (7/14) that it 'passed the security audit by TxPipe' — no report is public. Press (~7/19): Q2 credit market → Q3 yield app → Q4 bridge plan; Charles Hoskinson publicly backs it and has said he would commit 50 BTC. How default enforcement works on the Bitcoin side is unpublished.
▸Alchemy (Sundial × Charms) — GA #141Stepped back
1:1 BTC asset on Cardano? NOBeamed FIRE/ICE tokens are not 1:1 BTC-pegged
In plain words — It would sell products that bet on BTC's price (FIRE = up, ICE = down) and 'beam' those product tokens to Cardano via the Charms recursive-ZK asset standard; verification is client-side. The BTC itself is not what arrives on Cardano.
Verifiable status (2026-07-22) — Zero third-party audits at proposal time; two self-disclosed incidents in the Charms stack (a double-spend soundness bug fixed in v0.4.1; an SP1 zkVM advisory at v14.0.0). The proposer later offered audits-before-issuance and tranche gating in a public response. Its own explorer shows no activity statistics.
Withdrawal announcement (official post, 2026-07-16) — Sundial and Charms announced they have 'decided not to proceed with the Alchemy treasury proposal at this time', citing 'the Cardano treasury and broader market conditions' and conversations with DReps — 'the community's current priorities lie elsewhere… in crypto, timing is everything'. The same post discloses progress ('we even began minting FIRE on the Bitcoin testnet') and leaves the door open to revisiting later. The on-chain GA #141 cannot be un-submitted, so the vote formally runs to ep646, but the proposer no longer seeks ratification.
Scope note (team statement, 2026-07-22) — This row covers only the GA #141 'Alchemy' treasury proposal (FIRE/ICE structured products beamed via Charms). Sundial states its broader product line is a Bitcoin-Cardano L2 / BTC yield platform — in its own words 'not a bridge' — that works alongside bridges. That self-description is recorded here as stated; it does not change the verified facts above about the #141 proposal itself.
▸Sundial Protocol (L2)Testnet
1:1 BTC asset on Cardano? NOSelf-described 'not a bridge': native-BTC lockers + yield; bridging left to partners (BitcoinOS zk-bridge collaboration)
In plain words — Sundial describes itself as 'the first UTXO-native Layer 2 enabling secure, compliant Bitcoin yield generation at scale' (2-5% APY target, enterprise SDK with KYC/AML): BTC stays in native 'lockers' the holder controls ('your keys, your Bitcoin — no bridge risk' per the site) while yield strategies run on a Cardano L2 built with Anastasia Labs (Midgard-lineage optimistic rollup). Its CEO stated publicly (Jul 22): Sundial is 'not a bridge but a Bitcoin-Cardano L2 and BTC yield generator — we work with the bridges and have native BTC functionality'.
Verifiable status (2026-07-23) — Catalyst F13 'Institutional-Grade Layer-2 for Bitcoin DeFi' is FUNDED: ₳1.8M, 4 of 6 milestones complete, ₳1,444,500 distributed (portal), in collaboration with BitcoinOS (Edan Yago) and Tesseract; CEO Sheldon Hunt. A HackenProof crowdsourced audit of 'Sundial's BTC Lockers and Testnet' went live 2026-05-21 ($2,000 bounty pool) — evidence a testnet exists; no mainnet date is announced, no public TVL, and no DefiLlama listing. Its separate product with Charms — the Alchemy treasury proposal (row above) — was stepped back on Jul 16; Sundial states it continues building the L2. An F15 proposal (Sundial + Fairway, institutional identity) was voided by the Fund 15/16 cancellation.
▸CSWAP BTC KarmaPhase 1 live
1:1 BTC asset on Cardano? NOPhase 1: no. Phase 2 (planned): native-BTC collateral for Cardano stables — economic value WITHOUT a minted asset (the team disputes a plain 'NO'; see its objection below)
In plain words — Prove you hold BTC (it never moves; 'self-custodial bitcoin native scripts' per the CEO) and earn Cardano-native reward points ($KARMA, halving-style emissions, ~18 months). The CEO describes Phase 1 as 'TVL bootstrap mode' / 'top of the funnel… monetized in phase 2'. Phase 2 (team-stated, 'already on pre-prod'): lock native BTC on Bitcoin and collateralize it against Cardano stablecoins — explicitly no bridge and no wrapped asset in either phase.
Verifiable status (2026-07-23) — Token sale sold out 2026-05-19 (~400k ADA); mainnet Jun 25-26; staking portal Jul 8; emissions start July 25 — confirmed by repeated official team posts on X (Jul 1-8), though not stated on btckarma.io or its docs. Live metrics portal: staking.btckarma.io (figures render in-app, not in the page source — check it directly); the parent DEX holds ~$402k TVL. Funding record, corrected (public CEO posts, Jul 10): the team's two Catalyst proposals were never voted down — they were VOIDED when Funds 15/16 were cancelled (CF/IOG announcement, 2026-02-24) after '100s of hours' of preparation, and a separate DeFi-liquidity proposal is described by the CEO as unlikely to proceed. No treasury withdrawal ask has been submitted; the CEO publicly questions whether filing one is worthwhile given recent tallies.
The team's objection to this row (public replies, 2026-07-22) — The CEO publicly disputes the 'brings BTC value: NO' cell: 'Phase 2 brings Bitcoin value to Cardano — without a wrapped representation. This is the future of Bitcoin DeFi', citing the project docs (screenshots posted in replies). The objection is fair on economics and is now reflected in the cell note: under this table's definition (YES = a BTC-backed asset circulates on Cardano) Phase 2 would still mint nothing, but it WOULD let native BTC collateralize Cardano-stablecoin borrowing — an economic-value channel the minted-asset axis alone does not capture. Phase 2 is team-stated as 'already on pre-prod'; no public launch date.
Positioning & the Sui parallel (public statements, 2026-07) — The CEO frames the absence of a wrapped BTC as the design goal, not a gap: institutional BTC holders 'don't want to have to interact with Cardano at all', so sign-and-keep-custody is pitched as the institutional on-ramp, and the team publicly claims priority over Sui's comparable product ('BTC Karma shipped Phase 1 on Cardano before Sui shipped Hashi' — CEO, Jul 10). Verified context: Sui's Hashi (sui.io/hashi) lets institutions post NATIVE BTC as collateral via a personalized multisig monitored by Sui validators (threshold signatures + a guardian layer) — currently devnet/testnet. Custody nuance: Hashi does move BTC into a validator-threshold multisig, while Karma Phase 1 moves nothing (attestation only) — similar pitch, different custody class. The CEO also states the architecture was shared with CF and IOG in February 2026 and that 'independent builders should not have to compete with the protocol's core development company' — recorded as self-attested claims.
▸BitcoinOS (Grail / BitSNARK)Not shipped / dormant
1:1 BTC asset on Cardano? PLANNEDThat WAS the concept (xBTC/zkBTC); no public bridge shipped
What was promised vs what shipped — Announced 2024-10-24 with EMURGO: the Grail bridge + BitSNARK zk-proofs verified on Bitcoin via an optimistic challenge ('no custodians, no multisig federation, no honest-majority'), Cardano billed as the first L1; the demoed asset was called xBTC. What shipped is 'Grail Pro': an institutional Bitcoin-side pilot where custodians act as operators, minting zkBTC (self-attested cap 100 BTC). The 'mainnet Q2 2025' target was missed; no public permissionless Grail bridge found live on any chain.
Verifiable status (2026-07-22) — The core BitSNARK repo (bitsnark-lib) has been dormant since 2025-03-19 (~16 months). The May-2025 Bitcoin↔Cardano 1-BTC round-trip demo is press-reported with no published tx hashes; no evidence a BitSNARK proof was ever verified by a Cardano Plutus script. The Cardano route was re-scoped to partner Charms (its own Cardano demo 2026-03-23); BitcoinOS's latest official Cardano mention is also 2026-03-23. Funding: $10M VC round (2025-10-21, Greenfield-led); $BOS TGE 2025-10-29 (airdrop deliverable as a Cardano native token). No DefiLlama listing. No Cardano treasury or Catalyst ask found (partner Charms Inc has Catalyst F15 proposals).
▸Rosen Bridge (rsBTC)Live (BTC since Jun 2024)
1:1 BTC asset on Cardano? YESrsBTC minted on Cardano — live since Jun 2024
In plain words — Deposit BTC and receive a 1:1 receipt (rsBTC) on Cardano; burn it to withdraw. The vault key is split among 10 named 'guards' (mostly Ergo-ecosystem projects; 2 slots run by the core team) — about 7 of 10 must sign. Permissionless 'watchers' (each posting ≈$2k collateral plus slashable permits) must first report a deposit with a 60%+1 quorum before guards act. Coordination logic runs in Ergo smart contracts.
Trust model, precisely — Verified on-chain: the live guard box holds 10 guard public keys with threshold register [6,7] (docs-consistent reading: ~7-of-10 signing; exact semantics not officially documented). Guards are a permissioned, reputation-based set with NO collateral/slashing found in docs; watcher collateral is real but watchers alone cannot move funds. The locked BTC sits at a single native-SegWit address controlled collectively via threshold ECDSA — a federated class with deeper machinery (watcher quorum + Ergo contracts) than classic wrapped-BTC rails.
Verifiable status (2026-07-22) — Live: Cardano-Ergo since late 2023, Bitcoin since Jun 2024 (rsBTC policy on Cardano minted 2024-06-04; round-trip supported; rsBTC/ADA pool live on Splash). Measured: 2.04 BTC locked (72.2 BTC cumulative in / 70.2 out — real round-trip flow, small standing float); ≈0.558 rsBTC held by ~36 user addresses on Cardano; DefiLlama total TVL ≈$1.19M (Bitcoin portion $135k). Development very active (pushes Jul 19-21; contracts 7.1.0 released Jul 20). No successful exploit on record — and on Jul 21, 2026 the team reported an ACTIVE attack: 84 attempts to forge rsBTC Cardano→Bitcoin redemptions in 8 hours, all rejected by guards using independent data sources (self-attested; the locked BTC balance is intact on-chain; fixes being deployed).
Funding — No Cardano treasury withdrawal ask. Catalyst-funded: F10 'SPO revenue streams for securing bridge infrastructure' ₳850k (complete), F11 EVM onboarding ₳550k (complete), F12 Bitcoin Runes ₳350k (complete) — ≈₳1.75M total; F13 SUI/Solana asks were not funded. RSN token: 1B supply (team 10.5%, treasury 10.5%, Ergo Foundation 3%). Fees: max($10, 0.5%) split 70% watchers / 30% guards (self-attested).
▸anetaBTC (cBTC)Asset live / project dormant
1:1 BTC asset on Cardano? YEScBTC still circulates on Cardano — but no new mint since Oct 2024 (project dormant)
Dormancy, verified (2026-07-22) — Community members describe the project as 'abandoned' or a 'soft rug'. What is verifiable: the official X account's last post is 2025-03-06 (a V2 public-TESTNET announcement — ~16.5 months of silence since); the last code push in the dev org (github.com/anetalabs) is 2025-08-27 (~11 months); the last on-chain cBTC mint is 2024-10-21 (~21 months, Koios policy history); the promised V2 mainnet launch never happened; and no shutdown, pause or wind-down notice was ever published. Burn (redemption-direction) transactions did continue as late as 2026-06-02 — whether corresponding BTC payouts occurred on the Bitcoin side is not verifiable from the outside.
What this means for the asset — cBTC still exists on-chain: supply 1.3499 cBTC across a thin holder set, DefiLlama TVL ≈$89k (peak $1.29M, Apr 2024; not flagged dead there). The front-end still loads, but a custodial wrap without a responsive operator has no assured mint OR redemption path. Community 'rug' allegations (including a disputed 2023-24 Ergo-side exit) are recorded as claims, not verified facts — what IS verified is unannounced abandonment: no comms, no code, no mints, no notice.
▸wanBTC (Wanchain rail)Rail live
1:1 BTC asset on Cardano? YESWrapped wanBTC minted on Cardano (external federated)
Facts — Wrapped BTC via the Wanchain cross-chain rail (the same rail family that carries USDCx). Note: a Wanchain bridge exploit occurred 2026-07-20/21 on a different route (Cardano↔BNB, NIGHT token) — publicly documented.
Factual observations
The approaches address different layers
Bifrost proposes a neutral rail (a fungible 1:1 asset any dApp can use); Pogun's live plan is a credit product (with its own bridge as a later roadmap item); Alchemy proposes structured products; Karma's Phase 1 moves no value. Notably, a live neutral rail in a federated class ALREADY exists: Rosen's rsBTC (guard threshold ~7-of-10) — the same layer Bifrost targets, with a different trust machinery (SPO stake-weighted threshold + fraud proofs). Other overlaps from the teams' own statements: Bifrost vs Pogun's planned Q4 bridge (SPO stake majority vs 1-of-N operators), and Pogun's credit market vs Karma's stated Phase 2 (both: BTC stays on Bitcoin, collateralized against Cardano stables). BitcoinOS was a rail-layer entrant whose Cardano product was not delivered.
Timeline of public market tests
Reported/planned dates, in order: Karma emissions Jul 25, 2026 (team X posts); Pogun bridge Q4 2026 (roadmap); Bifrost public launch Q3 2027 (its own Bootstrap plan). Each earlier event produces public data before the later ones launch. One prior data point already exists: BitcoinOS's 2024-announced Cardano bridge missed its Q2-2025 target and never shipped publicly.
Existing rails carry very little BTC
BTC can reach Cardano today via TWO functioning rails — wanBTC (≈16.5 BTC ever) and Rosen Bridge's rsBTC (2.04 BTC locked, ≈0.56 circulating on Cardano; 72 BTC cumulative round-trip flow since Jun 2024) — plus one dormant one: anetaBTC's cBTC still circulates (1.35 cBTC, ≈$89k TVL) but has had no new mint since Oct 2024 and no responsive operator. Combined, well under 20 BTC of standing float. For scale, Ethereum holds ≈121k BTC in WBTC+tBTC (≈$7.7B) through a −45% BTC drawdown.
Funding models differ structurally
Of the nine, one still seeks treasury funding (Bifrost ₳12.33M, vote open) — Alchemy's ₳10M ask was publicly stepped back by its proposers on Jul 16 (the on-chain vote formally runs to ep646). Pogun's earlier ask expired unratified and it continues on private funding; Karma is self-funded — its two Catalyst proposals were voided by the Fund 15/16 cancellation (Feb 2026), not rejected; Sundial's L2 runs on a funded Catalyst F13 grant (₳1.8M, 4/6 milestones); BitcoinOS raised VC + a token; Rosen built its live BTC rail on completed Catalyst grants (≈₳1.75M total) with no treasury withdrawal; anetaBTC/wanBTC predate this cycle. Two prior data points: expiry of Pogun's treasury ask did not stop its development, and a live SPO-adjacent BTC bridge (Rosen) was delivered at roughly 1/7th of Bifrost's Phase-1 ask.
If any of this is out of date
These projects move quickly. If a launch happened, an audit report was published, or numbers now exist that are not captured here, please point to the source (repo / release / on-chain reference / official post) and this page will be updated.
Compiled by DRep YUTA as a factual reference (last full re-verification 2026-07-22). Sources: on-chain governance data (Koios / DBSync), Catalyst milestone portal, GitHub (FluidTokens, lantr-io, bitsnark repos), bifrost.fluidtokens.com, pogun.io, btckarma.io + docs + staking.btckarma.io, sui.io/hashi (Sui-parallel context), sundialprotocol.com + the funded Catalyst F13 record + HackenProof, bitcoinos.build, docs.rosen.tech + Ergo explorer + mempool.space (Rosen guard/vault verification), app.anetabtc.io + github.com/anetalabs + Koios cBTC policy history (anetaBTC dormancy verification), the EMURGO press release (2024-10-24), DefiLlama API, official X posts by the respective teams, public press reports. Self-attested claims are labeled. Facts only — this page expresses no vote or recommendation, and is not investment advice.