Ava_Labs, the servicing firm behind the Avalanche blockchain, proposed the listing of BTC.b as a collateral asset. BTC.b is the Avalanche bridged version of Bitcoin, facilitated by the Avalanche Bitcoin bridge, a secure and cost-effective infrastructure that allows users to participate in DeFi. The bridge uses Intel SGX technology and requires the approval of 6 out of 8 wardens, including Ankr, Blockdaemon, Chainstack, Protofire, Avascan, Ava Labs, Bware Labs, and Halborn. The bridge does not support BTC bridging with any wallet other than the Avalanche Core Wallet.

The Avalanche blockchain has been live for over a year without any downtime and currently holds about $28M worth of BTC.b. The Avalanche Bridge is the most popular Ethereum bridge in terms of Total Value Locked (TVL). The market cap of the bridge is $28M with a 24-hour volume of $501k, and BTC.b is traded on platforms like Trader Joe, Platypus Finance, and Pangolin. The Avalanche community is quite large, with 715k followers on Twitter and 48k members on Telegram.

The proposed technical parameters for BTC.b include a 70% max Loan-to-Value (LTV), a 75% liquidation threshold, and a 6.5% liquidation penalty. These parameters were questioned by Alex_BertoG, who requested a risk analysis due to the newness of the asset. However, Ava_Labs justified these parameters, stating they are similar to those of WBTC.e and are considered safe due to the level of on-chain liquidity and the ability to bridge back to native BTC quickly. The Aave Guardian has since executed the listing of BTC.b on Aave v3 Avalanche, as confirmed by Bgdlabs, following approval by the Aave governance.