Corporate Bitcoin reserves now rival ETFs, and Botanix Labs founder Willem Schroé wants to turn those dormant holdings into active, yield-generating assets.
Interview
Publicly listed companies are increasingly rebranding as Bitcoin () treasuries, with holdings now nearing 1.05 million BTC.
Private companies have also piled in by adding another 279,185 BTC across at least 68 companies, bringing the total to 1.33 million, or about 6.3% of Bitcoin’s supply. The question now is whether these reserves will sit idle or be put to work.
Willem Schroé, founder and CEO of Bitcoin yield network Botanix Labs, believes many won’t.
“There are a lot of people and a lot of private companies that hold Bitcoin looking into Bitcoin lending and yield opportunities,” he told Cointelegraph.
Schroé first encountered Bitcoin during his cryptography studies in Belgium, where he researched authenticated encryption alongside some early Bitcoin contributors. He later attended Harvard Business School, where he founded Botanix Labs, a Bitcoin yield sidechain designed to turn Bitcoin from a passive store of value into a usable financial system.
“The single thing every Bitcoiner wants — once you understand the full Bitcoin vision — is more Bitcoin.”
Turning corporate Bitcoin into working capital
Spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) hold even more Bitcoin than the aggregate total of private and public companies, with almost 1.7 million BTC. But their regulatory design leaves no room to put that Bitcoin to work.
“They use a custodian like Coinbase or Anchorage, so they don’t have the keys or the ownership themselves,” said Schroé. “Step two is regulation — if you’re an ETF holder, you’re not allowed to do that.”
The limitation stems from how spot Bitcoin ETFs are structured under US securities law. They are registered as passive commodity trusts under the Securities Act of 1933 and listed under the Exchange Act of 1934, a framework that allows them to track . By design, their filings prohibit lending, staking or rehypothecation of assets to maintain compliance as passive vehicles rather than .
Each spot Bitcoin ETF prospectus makes that clear. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust filing — the largest among them, with 804,944 BTC — : “The Trust, the Sponsor and the Trust’s service providers will not loan, pledge or rehypothecate the Trust’s assets, nor will the Trust’s assets serve as collateral for any loan or similar arrangement, except with respect to securing the repayment of Trade Credits.”
Some digital asset treasuries are already experimenting with yield strategies. On Solana, DeFi Development Corp (DFDV) stakes its holdings, runs validators and participates in decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols to expand its token balance over time.
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Similar approaches are emerging across other networks, and Bitcoin-native initiatives like Botanix aim to replicate that model for Bitcoin by allowing holders to earn yield while retaining control of their coins.
However, yield on Bitcoin is a sensitive subject. Previous attempts by centralized lenders like Celsius and BlockFi have . That history makes many in the industry wary of yield narratives, especially when they blur the line between financial innovation and speculative rehypothecation.
“That’s the nature of any product’s growth,” Schroé said. “The initial ideations and hacks will happen, but I think we’ve matured beyond that stage.”
“Protocols like Aave and Dolomite now have billions of dollars and a four- to five-year track record. They’ve weathered those cycles and the market is becoming more secure.”
Building Bitcoin’s financial layer
Schroé wants to turn Bitcoin into something . With Botanix Labs, he’s building a sidechain-based system that lets users earn yield on their Bitcoin without surrendering custody.
At the core of that idea is a rethinking of where yield comes from. In failed models like Celsius, users deposited Bitcoin into centralized platforms that took control of the funds, lent them out to hedge funds and counterparties and promised high returns. The system relied on offchain leverage and opaque lending, which worked until the market collapsed.
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Botanix operates as a non-custodial protocol. Users stake their Bitcoin into smart contracts on the Botanix sidechain and receive a yield-bearing BTC token in return. The distinction also extends to the source of yield.
Botanix ties yield to network usage itself, much like Ethereum’s staking rewards, where the blockchain transactions fund returns. The model still carries risks common to emerging DeFi protocols, such as exploits or bugs in smart contracts and bridges.
“I think Bitcoin has won as the money,” Schroé said. “The next step is a financial system, a medium of exchange.”
Bitcoin’s code divide and corporate adoption
The rising popularity of Bitcoin-backed loans and yield shows that the world’s first blockchain-based cryptocurrency is evolving beyond storage and speculation toward a functioning economy.
For Schroé, the goal isn’t to mimic traditional finance strategies but to build a Bitcoin-native financial system. Botanix uses an Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible environment where gas fees and collateral are paid in BTC, enabling lending, borrowing and liquidity provision directly on a Bitcoin-linked chain.
That ambition sits at the center of one of Bitcoin’s oldest philosophical divides. Builders like Schroé see utility as the logical next evolution of the network. Bitcoin purists that invites the same contagion that broke DeFi and centralized lenders in 2022.
Schroé told Cointelegraph that the tension is a sign of Bitcoin’s resilience. He pointed to the recent split between , who clashed over filtering policies and governance.
“I think Bitcoin Core should still listen to the market, should still listen to Bitcoiners,” he said. “There’s no such thing as Bitcoin Core being fully in control.”
That divide captures how Bitcoin continues to evolve, both in its code and in its applications. While developers debate governance and purity, companies and builders are searching for ways to make Bitcoin more than a static store of value.
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