“Building Bitcoin DeFi” — Bitpush Talks to Bitlayer’s Charlie Hu at Bitcoin 2025 Las Vegas

In an exclusive discussion with Bitpush, Charlie Hu, Co-Founder of Bitlayer, shared his vision for Bitcoin Layer 2 infrastructure, the future of native Bitcoin DeFi, and how their platform aims to unlock the "dormant value" of BTC for institutional holders.

Charlie believes Bitcoin is on the verge of its own "DeFi Summer"—a development that could reshape the ecosystem.

Bitpush: You’ve been at several blockchain events lately. What was your experience like?

Charlie Hu: This is my sixth time at a Bitcoin conference. I’ve been to Bitcoin Miami, Amsterdam, and Asia. This 2025 Figma Conference was probably one of the best in terms of logistics and networking. We sponsored the Enterprise Hall and had great talks with 21Shares, Grayscale, and others regarding ETF and ETP collaborations.

Bitpush: What are the core products Bitlayer is building?

Charlie Hu: Since our launch last April, we’ve processed over 52 million transactions and generated $10M in gas fees. We support 280+ projects in our ecosystem and focus on unlocking yield opportunities for Bitcoin holders.

Our two flagship infrastructure products are: BitBVM – Bridges Bitcoin L1 assets to other chains. We’ve partnered with Sui, Solana, Base, Arbitrum, etc. Bitcoin Verifier – Ensures Bitcoin L2 transactions are settled on Bitcoin L1, achieving Bitcoin-level security.

Bitpush: How do you compare with ecosystems like Ethereum and Solana?

Charlie Hu: Solana is high-performing but semi-centralized; Ethereum has structural issues post-PoS. Bitcoin remains the most decentralized and secure PoW network. We use Bitcoin as gas and settle on the Bitcoin base layer—this brings unique advantages in gas cost, native compatibility, and security.

Bitpush: Do you see a "DeFi Summer" coming to Bitcoin?

Charlie Hu: Absolutely. I was an early participant in Ethereum DeFi—Aave, Compound, Uniswap—doing farming, asset management, and trading back in 2020. We saw massive growth.

But Bitcoin, over the past 10 years, had only one use case: slow, costly payments. Lightning helped with speed, but it’s still limited to payments. What we want is true DeFi on Bitcoin: lending, AMMs, stablecoins, perpetuals, options, prediction markets. That required programmability, which wasn’t possible before.

Bitcoin is now the biggest crypto asset—almost $3T in market cap. It’s widely known and institutionally held. BlackRock and Franklin Templeton hold it via ETFs but can’t earn yield—currently, it’s 0%. We aim to help them earn 2–10% with risk-adjusted strategies. Bitlayer provides the infrastructure for that.

Bitpush: DeFi and cross-chain hacks have been frequent. How does Bitlayer address security?

Charlie Hu: Bitcoin Verifier ensures L2 transactions are finalized on the Bitcoin chain. That’s real Bitcoin-level security.

We also don’t work with random protocols. We partner with top-tier, audited, battle-tested teams like Moble, and we’re bringing in Uniswap. Hacks like the $1.5B loss at Bybit and bridge exploits are part of the industry's growing pains. But solutions are improving—AI-driven auditing and monitoring is making DeFi safer. We're standing on the shoulders of giants and moving DeFi over to a more secure home—Bitcoin.

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