Catenaa, Monday, August 10, 2026– BitGo has begun migrating its $7.4 billion Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) ecosystem to Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), becoming the latest major digital asset issuer to move away from LayerZero following a high-profile bridge exploit earlier this year.
The migration makes WBTC, the world’s largest wrapped Bitcoin token, the biggest digital asset to adopt Chainlink’s interoperability standard, reinforcing a broader industry shift toward cross-chain infrastructure emphasizing institutional-grade security.
BitGo said it will also standardize all future BitGo-issued digital assets on Chainlink CCIP, making it the company’s exclusive interoperability framework going forward.
Chief Executive Officer Mike Belshe said the decision reflects BitGo’s long-standing emphasis on security as the company expands support for tokenized assets across multiple blockchain networks.
The migration follows growing concerns surrounding LayerZero after hackers exploited the KelpDAO rsETH bridge earlier this year, stealing approximately $292 million through weaknesses in the bridge’s verification configuration.
Investigators found the affected bridge relied on a single verifier, allowing attackers to compromise supporting infrastructure and forge cross-chain transaction approvals.
LayerZero has since strengthened its security model to eliminate similar configurations, but the incident accelerated migration by several major blockchain projects toward alternative interoperability protocols.
Before WBTC’s transition, projects including Kraken’s kBTC, Solv Protocol’s SolvBTC, and xSolvBTC had already announced plans to migrate to Chainlink CCIP.
With the addition of WBTC, nearly $15 billion in digital assets are now expected to transition from LayerZero’s interoperability framework to Chainlink’s protocol.
Wrapped Bitcoin remains the dominant Bitcoin representation on Ethereum and other smart contract networks, accounting for approximately 45% of the global wrapped Bitcoin market.
Each WBTC token is backed one-for-one by Bitcoin held in custody, allowing BTC holders to participate in decentralized finance applications while maintaining exposure to Bitcoin.
BitGo said Chainlink’s CCIP offers multiple institutional security features, including independent node operators, transaction rate limits, configurable transfer controls and internationally recognized compliance certifications such as SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001.
The company said those safeguards are designed to contain potential security incidents before they spread across blockchain networks.
The migration also represents another chapter in WBTC’s evolving governance.
The token attracted industry scrutiny in 2024 after BitGo partnered with Justin Sun-linked BiT Global in a multi-jurisdiction custody arrangement, a move that later contributed to Coinbase delisting WBTC before launching its competing cbBTC token.
Despite those governance changes, BitGo emphasized that it continues to retain ownership and operational control of WBTC’s token contracts.
Industry analysts view the migration as evidence that cross-chain security has become one of the defining competitive factors for blockchain infrastructure providers as institutional capital increasingly flows into tokenized assets.
Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) was launched in 2019 to enable Bitcoin holders to use their assets across Ethereum-based decentralized finance applications. As blockchain ecosystems expand across multiple networks, interoperability protocols such as Chainlink CCIP and LayerZero provide the infrastructure that allows assets to move securely between blockchains. Following several major bridge exploits in recent years, institutional investors have increasingly prioritized security architecture when selecting cross-chain infrastructure providers.
