the VerifiedX The Foundation announced the launch of vBTC.b on Base with support for Fireblocks, with the aim of bringing Bitcoin’s digital gold qualities and world-class brand recognition to the Defi and institutional self-custody markets.
According to a press release shared with Bitcoin Magazine, VerifiedX is the first “non-synthetic bitcoin asset” with built-in native bitcoin recovery, compatible with Base, the EVM blockchain platform and Coinbase’s increasingly popular Defi platform. “vBTC now operates as a primary asset on Base under the ticker vBTC.b and is officially listed within the Fireblocks platform with self-custody enabled.”
While integration with Base makes vBTC available to the public. Integration with Fireblocks unleashes institutional interest, as Fireblocks is a leading institutional digital asset custody company and a strong brand in the Western market.
According to DefiLlama, the Defi market today is worth more than $80 billion. While Bitcoin is still the king of the cryptocurrency markets, its representation in Defi remains small; only 5 billion Valuable value is held in Bitcoin across the broader crypto-defi ecosystem, while Ethereum has more than 43 billion coins From himself.
VerifiedX believes there is strong demand for Bitcoin within Defi, with institutions increasingly interested in self-custodial solutions that can meet their needs for regulatory compliance as well as privacy from onchain analysis and front-end operation. VerifiedX is built around these expectations, innovating beyond traditional bridges, synthetic Bitcoin shells, and trusted federations.
Their new approach takes advantage of a large, open network of Frost Multi-Party Computing Nodes (MCP) that arguably set a new standard for cross-chain technologies. VerifiedX technology stack Obtained a “full corporate audit” through Halborn“.
Bitcoin users can expect enhanced integration with vBTC’s Defi Rails, with new utilities such as “programmable settlement, collateralized borrowing, return strategies, and AI proxy trading” among other potential features, leveraging cross-chain technology that is more decentralized and self-custody-oriented than what has been available to date. The VerifiedX chain also has zero-knowledge proof technology built in locally, providing a privacy advantage to its users as they move BTC in and out of the system, protecting them from onchain analytics.
FROST multi-party account and self-storage
The VerifiedX network leverages cryptographic breakthroughs built on upgrading the underlying root of Bitcoin. Each VerifiedX validator runs a FROST Multi-Party (MCP) server, an advanced, scalable model of… Share Shamir’s secret It was developed independently from VerifiedX.
FROST, which stands for “Flexible Circular Enhanced Schnorr Threshold Signatures,” unlocks a technology similar to multi-signature addresses in Bitcoin, but without leaving a clear imprint on the chain. Addresses generated by FROST are cryptographically indistinguishable from other key addresses, providing significant privacy benefits.
But the real value of FROST is its threshold signing technology, which allows party members to easily add and remove key shares (shards) to the pool (as long as the majority agree), without having to perform on-chain transactions. Keeping the relevant computations off-chain allows far more parties to participate in the security scheme than was previously possible, while keeping costs low and leaving no on-chain trace on Bitcoin. When more than the cutoff threshold is used in this MCP process, a valid Bitcoin transaction can be accumulated.
New members can join the public VerifiedX network as validators at any time, although they must jump through some hurdles. Users will need to sign a variety of transactions on the VerifiedX blockchain and need to hold 5,000 VFX, which is the native asset of this blockchain. Once valid transactions are signed on-chain, the network welcomes the new validator and their corresponding shard, increasing the number of parties needed to pass the threshold. The result is a large, dynamic, multi-signature Bitcoin wallet that avoids standardized whitelists of companies or small, high-trust custodians. If members remove 5000 VFX from the address, their node will be removed from active validators, and the FROST scheme will be adjusted accordingly.
It is important to note that although this is a major breakthrough in the field of decentralization, this public network scheme does not pass the technical definition of on-chain self-custody, as it does not give Bitcoin holders Unilateral withdrawal Bitcoin basic rights. If, for some catastrophic reason, VerifiedX’s public FROST pool goes offline, vBTC holders will not be able to redeem their Bitcoin. However, the scheme is arguably much more decentralized than current alternatives, often relying on simple single-digit multi-signature addresses, synthetic Bitcoin tokens backed by altcoins or trusted federations. At its current operational stage, there are over 100 active validators, and the number could technically grow beyond its reach.
However, VerifiedX technology opens the door to a self-paced path from Bitcoin to Defi. According to Jay Pollack – Head of Strategy and Business Development at the VerifiedX Foundation – the VerifiedX protocol could allow users to set up their own “self-sovereign smart contracts” using shards and a corresponding smart contract that mints 1:1 collateralized Bitcoin 100% under their control, though this specific capability will be announced in more detail and facilitated in upcoming updates. Such a “self-sovereign smart contract” setup would arguably bypass the self-custodial standard, opening a direct path from the Bitcoin onchain to the Defi ecosystem under the same vBTC ticker.
VFX Governance Code
VFX, the governance token of the VerifiedX blockchain, is an important security element of the entire equation, especially for the public FROST pool. Some sort of cost should be imposed on new validators to prevent a horde of fake accounts from invading the network. To this end, the current implementation of the protocol requires 5,000 VFX tokens to be held by validators. However, according to Pollack, this number is very likely to decrease soon.
value Visual effects It has been rising sharply since January 2025, though Pollack points out that Bitmart is the only exchange to list it, and better price discovery will come as it enters larger markets and provides more liquidity. He has been adamant that VFX is a governance token and has no interest in competing with Bitcoin in any way. Today, VFX is trading at around $69, making the cost of being a validator very high, though Pollack also said that the amount of VFX required is very likely to change to a much lower amount soon, making the self-custodial path for self-sovereign smart contracts much more accessible.
200 million units Of visual effects were minted in 2023 During the protocol’s founding, 67.5 million went to the VerifiedX Foundation and the rest is mined for active participation and in the testnet. Today, the organization holds approximately 32.3 million VFX coins. According to Pollack, the current lifetime supply of VFX is about 169.9 million, with the remaining 30 million actually burned in the early days for security reasons. He added that the circulating supply is much smaller, since mintages in the testnet era are restricted and can only transfer small amounts at a time, “subject to an on-chain unlock schedule, which limits sales to no more than the burn rate per block.”
Bitcoin Magazine has a financial relationship with the VerifiedX Foundation. This article has not been commissioned or reviewed by us VerifiedX Foundation It reflects the independent judgment of the author.
