BitGo moves $7.4 billion Wrapped Bitcoins to Chainlink CCIP in latest LayerZero exodus

BitGo is switching Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) — an asset with a current $7.4 billion market cap — to Chainlink’s CCIP cross-chain standard, joining a broader shift away from LayerZero after the $292 million KelpDAO bridge exploit earlier this year, according to an announcement on Tuesday.

"BitGo has long been built around a simple principle: security comes first," BitGo CEO Mike Belshe said in a statement. "As we expand support for BitGo-issued assets across more chains, Chainlink CCIP gives us a proven, institutionally adopted interoperability standard that aligns with the controls, reliability, and risk management our clients expect from BitGo. "

The company has also said it will exclusively use CCIP as its inter-blockchain solution for all “future BitGo-issued assets” going forward. WBTC was previously the largest asset using LayerZero’s OFT standard.

Dozens of projects have switched to Chainlink in recent months, including other wrapped bitcoins like Kraken’s kBTC and the Bitcoin-centric DeFi platform Solv Protocol’s SolvBTC and xSolvBTC.

WBTC represents the largest asset yet as part of that exodus, which had totaled about $7.2 billion as of July. With WBTC, nearly $15 billion worth of total value locked has pledged to switch from using LayerZero as a provider to Chainlink, a Chainlink representative told The Block. 

WBTC is also the first and largest wrapped bitcoin token, accounting for about 45% of the market capitalization of all wrapped bitcoins. Coinbase’s cbBTC is the next largest token, with about a $6 billion market cap, and the next largest after that falls below half a billion in value, according to CoinGecko data.

CCIP vs. LayerZero

Both Chainlink’s CCIP and LayerZero make it possible to move assets from one blockchain to another, though each comes with different security setups. Chainlink says each CCIP bridge is secured by “a minimum of 16 independent, security-reviewed node operators with a proven track record of reliability and uptime.”

LayerZero, at the time of the KelpDAO attack, relied on a configurable “Decentralized Verifier Network” (DVN) model that let clients decide how many independent verifiers would be required to oversee the lane.

In KelpDAO’s case, the rsETH bridge was set up with a 1-of-1 configuration — a single DVN operated by LayerZero Labs — that could approve cross-chain messages. Attackers compromised the off-chain RPC infrastructure feeding information to that one DVN, enabling them to forge a message and drain $292 million.

LayerZero has since updated its security setup to prevent these kinds of setups, after analysts found that 47% of LayerZero OApp contracts were using a 1-of-1 DVN configuration, according to Dune Analytics data.

The announcement also notes that “CCIP is the only cross-chain protocol” with SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001 compliance certifications, and that it offers transfer protections like rate limits and configurable transfer controls.

"These controls aim to act as automatic circuit breakers, containing potential incidents before they cascade," the announcement reads.

Wrapped Bitcoin 

WBTC has had its share of criticism, particularly after BitGo started working with Justin Sun-linked BiT Global in 2024 as part of a multi-jurisdictional custody setup. Under that arrangement, BiT Global received two of the three keys in the multisig controlling the Bitcoin reserves.

Perhaps most notably, Coinbase soon after delisted WBTC, citing listing standards, and launched cbBTC. BiT Global later sued Coinbase for alleged anticompetitive practices, but ultimately dropped its case after a federal judge ruled that Coinbase had the right to delist the token.

Notably, BitGo still retains full ownership and control of the token contracts.

Launched in 2019, WBTC at one point accounted for the entire wrapped bitcoin market, with over $15 billion in circulation. The token has seen its value drop significantly since September 2025, alongside the drop in bitcoin’s price, though its total supply has kept relatively constant, according to The Block’s data.