Democratizing Bitcoin Yield: Bringing Solv Protocol to NEAR

The core problem with BTC

One of the main problems with the world’s most well-known, widely used crypto — and the one with the largest market cap — is that its blockchain was not designed to be programmable.

Unlike other chains like Ethereum, Solana or NEAR, the Bitcoin network does not allow for developing smart contracts or apps natively.

This means that, although BTC is trusted and holds massive value worldwide, there is no native way to generate yield directly on BTC. In practice, your BTC just chills there, not working for you.

That’s where Solv Protocol comes in. Solv has developed robust technology that makes it possible to bridge BTC to other chains like Ethereum, EVMs, Solana, and now NEAR  with Rather Labs as partner building the infrastructure that makes the NEAR integration secure.

It does this by creating a fully secure 1:1 peg: for every BTC on the main Bitcoin network, there is a tokenized SolvBTC on these other chains.

But SolvBTC is not just another wrapped BTC. Unlike other wrapped tokens, SolvBTC is built with a much stronger design to ensure that each BTC is truly backed and secure, maintaining transparency and trust across the system.

When that BTC starts generating yield through staking strategies or other integrated sources, SolvBTC becomes xSolvBTC — a version that earns interest, generated by multiple actors and strategies connected to the Solv ecosystem and unlocked on NEAR.

In short:

• Keeps the value of BTC.
• It becomes portable and productive.
• And holders can finally earn real yield safely and transparently.

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SolvBTC is NEAR

Why This Problem Becomes a Huge Opportunity for NEAR

The biggest limitation of BTC is its inability to support smart contracts and DeFi natively — but that’s exactly what makes it so valuable for blockchains that do enable real programmability.

NEAR understood that this gap was a clear opportunity. Through Proximity, its core DeFi research and investment team, the ecosystem is actively attracting solid protocols that bring real liquidity, volume, and innovative on-chain use cases.

By integrating Solv, NEAR gives its users a simple way to bridge BTC, keep it fully backed 1:1, and put it to work generating yield.

But this is much more than just an integration.

NEAR is a blockchain that’s growing massively, with a DeFi ecosystem positioning itself as one of the most dynamic and promising among all chains.

Today, NEAR sits in the 30s in global market cap rankings — but with partnerships like this, its trajectory is clear: to keep scaling and strengthening its position as an interoperable, fast, and efficient chain for both users and developers.

Integrations of this scale show the robustness of the NEAR ecosystem.

Solv isn’t just any protocol: it manages a reserve of around 19,00 BTC, which translates to 2. billion of dollars in TVL that can now flow into new DeFi opportunities on NEAR.

All of this is possible thanks to the technical infrastructure built by Rather Labs, delivering a solid first MVP: vaults, mint/burn logic,oracles, and flows adapted to NEAR’s asynchronous, modular architecture.

With SolvBTC now on NEAR, any user can put their BTC to work without giving up the security of Bitcoin’s mainnet and unlock the full DeFi power of a blockchain ready to compete with the biggest players in the crypto space.

Our side: the integration by Rather Labs

Nothing about this would be possible without the infrastructure layer we are building at Rather Labs.

Our team is developing the initial MVP that enables the entire SolvBTC flow within NEAR.

This MVP includes:

• Designing vaults that securely hold the BTC reserve and manage the mint/burn logic for SolvBTC and xSolvBTC.
• Implementing oracles that ensure the BTC’s NAV is accurate and transparent.
• Adapting the entire flow to NEAR’s asynchronous and modular architecture, solving unique technical challenges like transaction synchronization and contract coordination in a sharded environment.

With this development, we are laying the foundation to expand Solv protocols integration in a secure, scalable way — ready for future upselling opportunities like new yield flows, lending strategies, or deeper integrations with other protocols across the NEAR ecosystem.

For us, this project is not just a technical integration.

It is an opportunity to show how Rather Labs can solve real blockchain infrastructure challenges, creating direct impact on liquidity and adoption of cross-chain DeFi.

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Conclusion

The integration of Solv with NEAR marks a big step forward for unlocking real yield on BTC in a secure, transparent, and user-friendly way.

What used to be impossible… putting BTC to work in DeFi while keeping it fully backed  is now becoming a reality, thanks to NEAR’s growing ecosystem and Solv’s proven cross-chain model.

At Rather Labs, we’re proud to lead the technical build that makes this possible: delivering robust, scalable infrastructure that connects worlds  Bitcoin, Solv, and NEAR  into one flow.

This is just the beginning.

SolvBTC on NEAR means more capital, more opportunities, and a clear signal that NEAR is ready to play among the biggest ecosystems for cross-chain DeFi.