Bitway (BTW) is a Bitcoin-compatible Layer 1 blockchain and on-chain strategy project. In practice, it is a network that lets native Bitcoin and stablecoin holders reach yield, lending and payment products without wrapping BTC or moving to EVM wallets. At the time of capture on 1 November 2026, BTW traded at $1.07, with a 24h change of -5.66%, a market cap of $1.62B (rank #69) and a 24h volume of $6.28M. It is 61.27% below its all-time high of $2.77.
Core technology and blockchain architecture
Bitway describes its stack as four components: Bitway Ledger, Bitway Lending, Bitway Earn and the ɃTCT Bitcoin bridge. Bitway Ledger is the independent Layer 1 chain. Its open-source repository states that it is built on Cosmos SDK and Tendermint, and the chain ID is bitway-1 (JrKripto; Cosmos Directory).
The chain supports native Bitcoin addresses, including SegWit and Taproot, and transactions can be signed with standard Bitcoin wallets. The project says this avoids wrapped BTC and its custodial risk (CoinMarketCap AI). Bitway Lending offers native BTC-collateralized loans built on Discreet Log Contracts (DLCs) (IQ.wiki). The ɃTCT bridge is run by validators and uses FROST (Flexible Round-Optimized Schnorr Threshold) signing (CoinGecko).
Primary use cases
- Stablecoin yield: Bitway Earn runs yield vaults on BNB Chain. Users deposit USDT or USDC and receive a voucher token representing their share (Phemex). The Bitway site lists an 8.00% APR for 1 October to 1 November 2026, which is a platform-listed rate and not an independently verified return (Bitway).
- Bitcoin finance: Native BTC lending and transfers without wrapping (JrKripto).
- Token utility: BTW is used for staking, paying gas on Bitway Ledger, governance and access to selected products (Bitway Docs).
Who is behind Bitway and where is it based?
The team is publicly named, so the project is not anonymous. Shane Qiu is Co-Founder and CEO. He was previously a researcher at Binance Labs (now YZi Labs) and Head of Growth at Nym (BTCC; CryptoRank). Dave Hrycyszyn is CTO. He was Co-Founder and CTO of Nym and co-authored the Chainspace sharding protocol (HTX; LinkedIn).
Sources disagree on the founding year, which is given as 2021, 2022 or 2023. The project was formerly known as Side Protocol, and Side Labs raised a $1.5M pre-seed round in July 2023 (The Block).
The operating country is not confirmed. CB Insights lists a Delaware headquarters and Caplight lists the United States, while CryptoTotem lists Canada. The CEO's personal profile lists Hong Kong and the CTO's lists London. Preqin names Side Labs Inc., doing business as Bitway, as the operating company, but no source confirms its incorporation jurisdiction (Preqin).
Tokenomics
- Supply: Total and maximum supply are both 10,000,000,000 BTW. Circulating supply is 1,505,787,514 BTW.
- Allocation: Community 26.67%, Ecosystem 20%, Team 20%, Backers 16.33%, Partners 12% and Liquidity 5% (Bitway Token page).
- Vesting: Partners and Liquidity unlock fully at TGE. Team tokens have a 12-month cliff followed by 36 months of linear vesting. Full vesting is scheduled to finish on 2 March 2030 (Bitrue).
- Upcoming unlock: About 101.6 million BTW (about 1.0% of total supply) is scheduled to unlock on 2 November 2026 at 08:00 UTC (BitInsider).
- Inflation and deflation: Total supply is fixed. The sources reviewed describe no burn mechanism and no ongoing emissions beyond the scheduled vesting unlocks.
Consensus mechanism and network security
Bitway Ledger uses Proof-of-Stake consensus. Validators stake BTW to take part in consensus, and token holders can delegate to validators and earn staking rewards (IQ.wiki). The validator guide says a validator's stake is slashed if it becomes unavailable or signs conflicting blocks. Validators also run an oracle service that aggregates Bitcoin prices from exchanges including Binance, Bybit, Coinbase, Bitget and OKX (GitHub, bitwaylabs/networks). The sources do not give a validator count or total staked amount.
Partnerships and ecosystem
- Seed round: Led by TRON DAO in January 2026 at $4.444M, with HTX Ventures participating (Binance Square).
- Other backers: YZi Labs, HashKey Capital, Symbolic Capital, KR1, Continue Capital and Informal Systems (BTCC).
- Listings: Binance and Coinbase list BTW (Coinbase).
- Multichain: BTW exists as a BEP-20 token on BNB Smart Chain and an ERC-20 token on Ethereum (Bitway Docs).
Competitive advantages and value proposition
Bitway's core claim is that it removes the need for wrapped BTC and EVM wallets, so Bitcoin holders can use native addresses and keys (Coin Engineer). Its lending relies on DLCs rather than custodial wrapping (IQ.wiki). The project describes itself as a "DeTraFi" model that combines on-chain transparency with off-chain trading desks (Phemex). The sources do not provide independent performance benchmarks against competing Bitcoin Layer 1 or DeFi protocols.
Development activity and roadmap
Bitway's site states that the product is "now live on Mainnet" (Bitway). Its GitHub organization lists repositories for the chain, Earn contracts and EVM contracts, written in TypeScript, Go, Rust, Solidity and Python (GitHub, bitwaylabs). The whitepaper, version 2.1 dated 27 December 2025, is labelled "outdated" in the project's own documentation (Bitway Docs). Announced 2026 items include more wallet integrations, expanded lending and payment products, and BTC-native derivatives. No delivery dates are confirmed in the primary sources.