Launching BTC & ETH anchors on Stellar
Ultra Stellar expands the suite of tethered crypto assets by adding Bitcoin and Ethereum bridges on Stellar
It’s an exciting day for us here on the Ultra Stellar team. After thorough preparation, we are ready to announce the launch of 4 new cryptocurrency assets: BTC, yBTC, ETH, and yETH. These assets are the newest addition to our anchor product line and join the widely popular yXLM and yUSDC products.
⛓ Tethered BTC & ETH on Stellar
Today we are launching ETH:ultrastellar.com and BTC:ultrastellar.com assets on the Stellar network. These assets are connected to our ultrastellar.com domain to ensure authenticity and make it easy to discover them in Stellar wallets and apps.
Ultra Stellar will act as an anchor for these assets, securely storing the deposited native Bitcoin and Ether while issuing BTC and ETH on Stellar. Every issued asset is strictly backed 1:1 by the reserves. This means you can hold wrapped Bitcoin & Ether assets on the network, making use of fast and inexpensive transactions on Stellar.
At any time, you can withdraw BTC & ETH back to their respective networks. These assets support SEP-24 integration, which means you can deposit & withdraw to the Bitcoin or Ethereum networks directly from supported Stellar wallets.
Tokenised BTC and ETH on Stellar allows anyone to make use of the efficiency of the Stellar network. This could save time and money for users if they need to make lots of transactions. You can use these assets for fast and low-cost payments, but they can also be traded on the SDEX or deposited in upcoming AMM liquidity pools, set to launch on Stellar in early November.
There are two ways how you can get a hold of these wrapped assets on Stellar. Let’s take BTC as an example. You can mint new BTC on Stellar by depositing native Bitcoin through our Deposit bridge. Use these step-by-step guides (for LOBSTR, StellarTerm, StellarX, and Solar) to learn more about the deposit flow into each product. Another option is to buy BTC on SDEX from someone else. In both cases, you can be sure that the BTC asset is fully backed by Bitcoin in Ultra Stellar’s reserves, and you can exchange BTC:ultrastellar.com to native Bitcoin at a 1:1 rate (minus the network fee).
If you would like to move these assets from the Stellar network, we recommend using our SEP-24 withdrawal bridge to get 1:1 for the assets you hold.
📈 Trading BTC & ETH on Stellar
Having these assets tethered on the Stellar network also means trading can be completed on the decentralized exchange (SDEX). We are taking steps to ensure there is liquidity in the SDEX order book and that the SDEX prices of BTC and ETH are up-to-date.
We suggest using BTC/USDC and ETH/USDC markets on SDEX for the best liquidity and exchange rates. Alternatively, you can use Swap functionality available in most Stellar apps to ensure you get the best exchange rates.
With Automated Market Makers coming at the beginning of November, we expect liquidity to continue to increase and spreads and slippage to become lower.
🧑🌾 Yield Earning yBTC & yETH
As an addition to our asset lineup, we offer y-assets. These versions are called yBTC & yETH, which both generate a yearly APY, currently set at 5%.
Upcoming Stellar AMMs will bring the option to earn fees on any Stellar asset for liquidity providers. The protocol upgrade introducing AMM is scheduled for November 3rd, so mark the date in your calendars.
We mention AMMs because y-assets can be deposited into AMM pools too. And in addition to regular AMM fees, y-assets will continue to earn yield even while being locked in AMM pools. This unlocks very interesting opportunities.
We are especially excited to see how pools such as XLM/yXLM or BTC/yBTC will perform. These pools have no impermanent loss risk because y-assets are fully backed and 1:1 redeemable. And every yield farmer in this pool will benefit from regular AMM exchange fees as well as receive a portion of yield generated by y-asset in the pool.
You can use SEP-24 withdrawal & deposits for these assets as well, either depositing straight from the original blockchains or using our new BTC & ETH tethered assets.
We hope all these assets combined will help create a better experience for you when using Stellar. We will be looking to integrate more assets as time progresses, so sign up for our Medium to keep up to date with the latest developments at Ultra Stellar.
Also, we would like to welcome you to our new assets page, describing yXLM, yBTC, yETH and yUSDC in one place: https://ultrastellar.com/assets/.
You can also find us over on our Twitter account here.
Or visit us on our webpage at https://ultrastellar.com/.
