Citrea Launches Foundation to Gas Up Bitcoin's DeFi Rocket Ship

The Bitcoin-app platform Citrea, backed by heavyweights Founders Fund and Galaxy Ventures, has officially spun out an independent Citrea Foundation. This new body will act as the chief steward of the Citrea Network, pumping resources into open-source development, community growth, and Bitcoin-native apps that champion self-custody, privacy, and serious capital-market action.

Orkun Kilic, the foundation's director and a co-founder of Chainway Labs, told Bitcoin Magazine the foundation will channel its energy toward research and ecosystem development focused on secure self-custody, privacy-preserving transactions, and efficient capital markets. He noted that this new structure is designed to let builders and institutions plug into the network without turning decentralization into a corporate buzzword.

Funding will be laser-focused on cryptography research and infrastructure projects that build truly trustless bridges—because who needs external collateral or liquidity constraints when you have math? The foundation will also dole out grants and technical guidance to developers working to expand Bitcoin’s financial utility beyond simply being digital gold for your cold wallet.

Murat Karademir, the other Chainway Labs co-founder and COO, joins Kilic on the board as an independent non-executive director based in the Cayman Islands. The board's mission is to keep the foundation's activities ruthlessly aligned with its decentralization-first creed while somehow also nurturing a vibrant, pizza-fueled developer community—a classic crypto balancing act.

Citrea views the foundation as the cornerstone of its long-term plan to decentralize everything, coordinating research, funding, and community outreach to lower the barriers for building self-custodial and privacy-focused solutions. Industry watchers see the move as a strategic play to solidify Bitcoin’s role as a programmable financial network that can handle complex capital-market activity, not just store of value memes.

At its core, Citrea operates as a Bitcoin application layer, giving both institutions and degens the tools to tap into Bitcoin capital markets without poking holes in the network's legendary security model. Back in January, the team flipped the switch on its mainnet alongside ctUSD, a U.S.-dollar-pegged stablecoin fully backed by short-term Treasuries, aimed squarely at on-chain lending, trading, and other financial services.

The platform's grand ambition is to unlock roughly $1.2 trillion worth of Bitcoin that's been sitting idle for over a year—imagine all that capital finally getting off the sofa—by providing compliant, on-chain capital-market infrastructure. Its investor roster includes Founders Fund, Galaxy Ventures, Maven 11, Delphi Digital, Erik Voorhees, and Balaji Srinivasan, a veritable who's who signaling growing conviction that Bitcoin's financial ecosystem is ready for its next act.