Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )

Compiled by Ethan ( @ethanzhang_web3)

With the accelerated approval of spot ETFs, the rapid evolution of the L2 ecosystem, and the continued growth of RWA assets, the institutional value of Bitcoin has become increasingly clear. However, at the same time, the on-chain participation of this asset, valued at over $2 trillion, remains low for a long time.

In the current situation of dormant liquidity and faulty infrastructure, how to truly make Bitcoin "move" has become an urgent question that developers and project parties need to answer.

On the evening of September 23rd, Odaily Planet Daily and Zeus Network held an X Space event. Focusing on Zeus Network's recently launched Binance Alpha node, the event explored the current path and future prospects of Bitcoin DeFi. Topics covered included Solana, BNB Chain, APOLLO, and btcSOL.

The guest of this conversation is Justin, co-founder and CEO of Zeus Network . The following is a summary of the highlights of this Space.

Odaily: First of all, we're honored to have Justin, co-founder of Zeus Network, here today to talk to us about what they've been working on. Before we get started, could you please briefly introduce yourself and what Zeus Network does?

Justin : I'm honored to be a part of this Space. I'm Justin , co-founder of Zeus Network . Our team began building on Solana at the end of 2020, over five years ago. Two years ago, we initiated Bitcoin-related infrastructure research on this chain and successfully achieved a technological breakthrough: making Solana the first chain capable of verifying Bitcoin transactions.

Starting with the testnet two years ago, we spent over a year polishing our protocol before officially launching it on the mainnet in April of this year. Although the mainnet has been online for less than seven months, over 521 bitcoins have already been staked on our protocol, and the TVL has reached approximately $60 million , and continues to grow.

Many people will ask, why do we do this?

Since entering the crypto industry in 2016, I've seen countless narratives about Bitcoin, from "Bitcoin smart contracts" to "Bitcoin L2," which are repeatedly mentioned in almost every bull market. However, there are still few solutions that can truly implement Bitcoin applications.

We believe that the key to Bitcoin is not to "recreate a new chain", but to allow it to flow and be used in an existing efficient ecosystem.

The two most active blockchains currently— Solana and BNB Chain —are our key focus. In the coming months, we will continue to expand Bitcoin’s use cases on these two chains, truly building an ecosystem that “makes Bitcoin move.”

Odaily: Regarding the practical path for Bitcoin cross-chain, we noticed that Zeus Network started on Solana and is now gradually expanding to BNB Chain. So, the first question is, why did you initially choose Solana over more mainstream chains like Ethereum or Arbitrum?

Justin: Great question. When I first started my business, especially in the Web 3 space, Solana was the first blockchain I encountered. The reason for this is that our team, and especially myself, first participated in Solana's global hackathon in March 2020, hosted by FTX. That was the opportunity that first introduced us to Solana.

As you all know, Solana was originally a chain built around NFTs. However, due to the FTX incident, its price plummeted from over 200 yuan to 8 yuan. Personally, I believe that from an industry development perspective, a chain's "technology" isn't the most important factor; what's more crucial is its traffic and resilience .

I believe Solana and Ethereum are among the few chains that have weathered multiple cycles of volatility and been repeatedly stress-tested. If even at the worst, people still stick around and contributors continue to build, then I believe that chain has great potential. That's why we've been building on Solana since 2020, because it has so many talented contributors and developers who are constantly working on it.

As for why we didn't choose Ethereum, I think everyone has observed over the past few years that the number of users on the Ethereum mainnet is actually decreasing. We can't argue about whether L2 actually helps Ethereum, but the fact is that activity on Ethereum is indeed declining.

The reason why we are now discussing BNB Chain, without mentioning the Alpha perspective, is mainly due to two reasons:

The first is the opening up of American law;

The second is the return of CZ.

These two points make us realize that the traffic of the exchange is actually far greater than the traffic effect generated by the chain itself.

My personal opinion is that in the future, we won't need 20 or 30 chains. I think two or three will suffice. This is clearly evident in the migration of Ethereum users to L2 and then back to Solana. Currently, the BNB chain has the highest on-chain activity in the industry, and this has been the case for several weeks.

This also illustrates one thing: you need a good enough traffic entrance , like a window like an exchange, to direct users to the chain, so as to create new gameplay and attract more new users.

Do I believe the BNB chain will continue to thrive? I think it will. But I also believe our industry needs more chains like Solana and native Ethereum. Only when these three coexist can we truly generate more innovation.

Odaily: You mentioned earlier that your initial choice of Solana was influenced by the team's own experience. Let's move on to a topic everyone is very interested in: Zeus Network's recent launch on Binance Alpha is undoubtedly a major milestone in the project's development. Beyond traffic exposure and community growth, can you share with us what stood out most about your Binance Alpha application process?

Justin: I was particularly impressed by the Binance team's focus on the Bitcoin ecosystem. When applying for Alpha, not just any project was eligible; they had to have a specific focus area.

When we first spoke with the Binance team, they provided a lot of feedback on the Bitcoin ecosystem. We also know that Binance was very supportive of Bitcoin L2 in the early days, but until now, there are only a handful of L2 projects left in the ecosystem.

At that time, we also continued to give them feedback on Zeus's plan, saying that we did not want to create a new blockchain ourselves, but hoped to lock Bitcoin to more high-quality blockchains , rather than having Zues create its own chain.

What also impressed me was that when they saw the data of zBTC, they found that most of the deposits actually came from retail investors rather than institutions. Then they realized that there really is a technology that can allow more users to buy Bitcoin and generate income.

As I mentioned at the beginning, when people talk about Bitcoin returns, whether it's volume, TVL, or efficiency, they always focus on which institution can bring in the most Bitcoin. But we provide a technical path that allows ordinary users to see a way to transfer native Bitcoin on a chain. This will further motivate them to buy more Bitcoin, convert it to zBTC, and then use it in the Solana ecosystem. I believe this is a proven technology.

And as everyone knows, in the past one to two months, the activity of BNB Chain has been very, very high, which has also led to many DeFi projects on Binance to produce very high returns.

This leads us to consider a question: if Zeus's infrastructure layer can be deployed on BNB Chain, allowing BNB Chain to truly verify Bitcoin liquidity in its original code , then could these DeFi protocols on BNB Chain truly generate Bitcoin returns? Could this also encourage more Binance users to buy more zBTC or other versions of Bitcoin, thereby generating greater benefits?

I think this is a direction that is worth everyone's consideration.

Odaily: Bitcoin's current market capitalization has exceeded $2 trillion, but in reality, a large amount of Bitcoin remains dormant, unable to participate in on-chain activities such as DeFi. How do you understand this phenomenon? What mainstream solutions are currently being marketed to activate Bitcoin's on-chain liquidity?

Justin: Let's start this discussion with the evolution of Bitcoin applications. In 2017, Stacks introduced the concept of Bitcoin smart contracts through an ICO. Then, in 2018, the Lightning Network became a popular solution for speeding up Bitcoin transfers. However, neither solution has achieved widespread adoption.

By 2024, the hype surrounding inscriptions fueled a wave of Bitcoin adoption and led the industry to realize that Bitcoin L1 inherently lacked scalability. Once user numbers increased, speed would be compromised, and miner fees would become prohibitively expensive. This directly led to the emergence of a large number of Bitcoin L2 solutions.

Of course, we're also realistic about the fact that many Bitcoin L2 projects have already been abandoned, leaving only a handful of teams willing to explore practical application scenarios. When we founded Zeus Network, we also evaluated whether to pursue Bitcoin L2. Ultimately, we concluded that L2's user experience (UX) wouldn't significantly improve Bitcoin's efficiency, and that it was better served by leveraging Solana's high-performance infrastructure.

Solana's transactions per second (TPS), cost, and carrying capacity enable new liquidity scenarios for Bitcoin. For example, when we first joined the Solana ecosystem, there were just over 700 Bitcoins on-chain; now, there are over 8,600, and we anticipate this number to exceed 9,000–10,000 by the end of the year. All of these Bitcoins can generate returns in Solana's DeFi scenarios.

So we are not working on L2 or L3, but hope to use Zeus Network to allow Bitcoin to truly participate in an efficient on-chain ecosystem and unleash its liquidity value.

In the past 7 months, we have launched two core products: APOLLO and btcSOL , and more products will be launched in the future.

Odaily: We just talked about the solution proposed by Zeus and some mainstream attempts in the market. So, from a user's perspective, what obstacles still remain to be truly resolved?

Justin: I think a big part of the failure of Bitcoin L2 and a series of “Bitcoin strategies” is that these chains are not what institutions really need.

We can first list a few key points. Institutional investors are actually divided into three types:

The first type is the OG or large miners who mined Bitcoin in the earliest days;

The second type is those who bought Bitcoin in the early stage. They may have hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of Bitcoins.

The third type is a real consortium, such as Hedge Fund, VC, and PE.

So why do these people need to put their Bitcoin on a sidechain or L2? They don't really need it. What do they want? It's income, stable income.

I find it interesting that, in the nearly seven months since the Zeus mainnet launched, we've noticed that many people are buying Bitcoin because of Zeus. Bitcoin trading volume on the Solana mainnet is still relatively low. 90% of Bitcoin trading volume still occurs on centralized exchanges, with only 10% distributed across various on-chain ecosystems. Of this 10%, 60% to 70% occurs on the Solana and BNB chains.

What Zeus does is bring the true, native Bitcoin reserves to the blockchain. What does this mean? If you earn Bitcoin on the blockchain today, you don't have to go through the KYC or KYB process. You can directly receive the original Bitcoin from the blockchain and transfer it to your Bitcoin wallet or anywhere else you want.

Currently, 70% of the Bitcoin yield market comes from "yield treasure," or earning products offered by centralized exchanges. However, these products are subject to regional restrictions, barring users from different countries. Furthermore, they impose mandatory Know Your Business (KYB) and Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements, which creates significant challenges. For example, using Binance or OKX requires a VPN (virtual private network) in many countries, and third-party identity verification is also required.

Therefore, if we really want to expand Bitcoin’s income products and application products, we must think in a “borderless” way without KYC and KYB restrictions.

If you still expect OGs, miners, funds, VCs, and other institutions to put their Bitcoin on a specific chain for use, the process will definitely be very slow. But that's not what we do. We use our products to encourage more people to buy Bitcoin and earn Bitcoin returns on the chain.

I think this is what we have done best in the past 7 months.

Odaily: Driven by a growing number of solutions, Bitcoin is moving towards "assetization," moving beyond being just "digital gold." Especially with the rise of LSD and LRT, "Bitcoin interest-generating" is becoming a reality. So, how do Zeus Network's APOLLO and btcSOL products enable Bitcoin to participate in on-chain returns?

Justin: Let me first explain how Zeus differs from other L2, L3, or Bitcoin-focused projects: We help a native blockchain evolve to become more advanced. What does that mean? We transform a blockchain into an exchange that can serve Bitcoin.

We already have 521 Bitcoins locked up on the Solana mainnet, meaning you can build all sorts of Bitcoin products on Zeus today, turning Solana into a "native exchange" for Bitcoin transactions.

Let's talk about APOLLO and btcSOL. Whether you buy or sell Bitcoin on Ethereum, APEX, or other Ethereum L2 platforms, you still can't directly access native Bitcoin. If you need to withdraw funds, you still have to go through an exchange. So, how do we do this? We're turning Solana into a platform for withdrawals.

For example, if you want to mint zBTC today, we at Zeus are launching zBTC, the first tokenized Bitcoin product. No KYC or KYB required. Simply log in to APOLLO and send the native Bitcoin in your wallet to an address generated on Solana. You'll then mint the corresponding Bitcoin and immediately start earning profits within the Solana ecosystem.

And btcSOL is also a pioneering effort.

Before btcSOL came out, there were roughly three ways to obtain Bitcoin:

The first is to use your own salary or savings to buy through the exchange;

The second way is to borrow money from your parents, brothers and sisters, or pool money to buy it;

The third method is to use a Bitcoin credit card. For example, in the United States, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, some credit cards can give you cash back or Bitcoin after spending.

But what we're trying to do now is make btcSOL the fourth way to earn Bitcoin returns . How does it do this? It uses the revenue of the entire Solana chain to generate native Bitcoin returns.

For example, the annualized return on staking SOL on Solana is currently 7.48%. If you stake SOL to a node, you should receive more SOL. However, what we do here is convert the returns from staking SOL into Bitcoin and deposit it back into your wallet. In other words, your SOL holdings remain unchanged, but your Bitcoin holdings increase.

Of course, some might say, "I want to earn more SOL." But the logic is this: You can simultaneously maintain the growth of two assets: the SOL you stake remains unchanged, and the Bitcoin income you continuously receive.

In other words, buying SOL now is like buying a ticket to Bitcoin profits. One or two months later, you check your wallet and see the same SOL balance, but the amount of Bitcoin has increased. If the price of Bitcoin itself increases, you'll earn even more.

Bitcoin itself actually has no staking applications, but we use Solana's ecosystem - fast speed, low cost, and large number of users - to release Bitcoin's profits in another way.

That’s what we’re doing.

Odaily: We just talked about btcSOL's revenue model and revenue sources. What is its relationship with SOL itself? Could you please elaborate on your views?

Justin: Basically, Bitcoin doesn't offer staking rewards. Its application layer can be divided into two types: on-chain and off-chain. We're leveraging Solana's unique high yields on the chain. I believe Solana's staking rewards are currently significantly higher than Ethereum's.

So how do we do that? We convert the revenue from the Solana node into native Bitcoin.

Let me put it this way: btcSOL is actually just one SOL . You stake this SOL, and you get one btcSOL. It's actually an LST (liquidity staking token). You stake SOL, and you get one btcSOL.

We then convert the Solana node revenue generated by each block into zBTC. As you know, there is a zBTC on Solana, which represents an off-chain wallet address and a corresponding native Bitcoin.

So when you earn these zBTC, you can earn the original Bitcoin from the Solana ecosystem in a seamless way without KYC or KYB , and finally return it to your own original Bitcoin wallet.

What we do in this regard is to completely rely on no centralized exchanges or centralized teams, but to generate a Bitcoin profit model entirely based on the on-chain profit structure.

Odaily: Moving on to the product side, Zeus's current product line includes both APOLLO for developers and btcSOL for regular users. What pain points do these two products address? How did you define their target user profiles internally?

Justin: Our product positioning is actually very simple. Our first goal is to build the Zeus mainnet and show all our peers, compatriots, and users that we can truly turn a blockchain into a Bitcoin node.

The meaning of Bitcoin node is that even if this chain is not the original Bitcoin chain, it can still store the original Bitcoin code.

As I mentioned earlier, there are already 521 original Bitcoins locked up on Solana's mainnet. This is a very intuitive example.

We are also thinking, if we can help BNB Chain, or other blockchains, lock Bitcoin to their chains through Zeus’ services and technologies, and build more applications around these Bitcoins - that would be another way to play, right?

So in terms of product positioning, we have actually been conveying a message: The existence of APOLLO and btcSOL is to prove to the entire market that our technology is feasible, trustworthy, can be used, and can even be scaled.

We will also enter the Alpha phase next. I can reveal in advance that we will integrate these real-world Bitcoin application scenarios into a single Super App .

I won’t go into too much detail about this Super App for now, but the core idea is to allow users to generate Bitcoin income in one place , integrating it through different on-chain and off-chain methods.

Ultimately, we hope that this Super App can reach millions of users.

Odaily: APOLLO sounds more like a cross-chain consensus layer for Bitcoin, an infrastructure protocol. So what are its main application scenarios? Does it already have any partners?

Justin: Yes, APOLLO has already collaborated with nearly 30 projects. The on-chain liquidity of the zBTC we issued is approximately $10 million.

We are currently the third-largest Bitcoin variant on Solana, behind only cBTC and WBTC. Furthermore, zBTC isn't limited to Solana; we've already expanded it to several L1 and L2 products on Ethereum.

I believe we'll see explosive growth in zBTC over the next three to four months. Why? Because zBTC is one of the few truly decentralized versions of Bitcoin in the industry. You can seamlessly convert it back to original Bitcoin without KYC or KYB .

I believe that there are very limited options for this technology worldwide. In our Zeus plan, BNB Chain is actually one of our key future development areas.

We believe that if we can achieve this on Solana and lock up nearly 1,000 Bitcoins, why can’t we replicate this model and lock up even more Bitcoins on BNB Chain?

Odaily: We just mentioned APOLLO, so of course we have to talk about btcSOL. You mentioned earlier that btcSOL is closer to the LSD model. Will it have features like staking and mining in the future? Also, what is the current yield range?

Justin: btcSOL will probably be close to the online Solana income of around 5-6% APY, and these income will be converted into Bitcoin's native income nodes.

I believe btcSOL's main focus over the next few months will be collaborating with more centralized exchanges. As you all know, earnings on exchanges, especially Bitcoin earnings, are still heavily reliant on off-chain trading teams developing related applications. Based on trading logic, the perceived profitability of Bitcoin still relies primarily on token airdrops from project owners or incentive points .

But things will be different here. I believe that in the coming weeks, we will gradually announce news about btcSOL's partnerships with more centralized exchanges, bringing the btcSOL investment opportunity to the Earn pages of more exchanges.

For example, if you currently have SOL, or LST-type SOL on an exchange, you can stake it to btcSOL and earn Bitcoin returns. This way, you actually retain the risk exposure of both SOL and Bitcoin.

Host: Thank you very much, Justin! OK, this is our last question for tonight. Thank you very much for participating in this Space and for your wonderful sharing.

From today’s discussion, we can see that, unlike those solutions that simply copy the Ethereum DeFi model, Zeus Network is creating new possibilities for Bitcoin in a more unique way. Whether it is cross-chain, revenue, or user participation, the future is very worthy of attention and anticipation.

This Space is co-organized by Odaily Planet Daily and Zeus Network . Thank you to all the listeners for your company and support tonight.

I’m your host, Ethan. See you next time on Space!

Thanks again Justin!