Citrea, a Bitcoin layer-2, has dropped ctUSD, a U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin built to act as the canonical liquidity layer for its ecosystem. Backed 1:1 by short-term U.S. Treasury bills and cash, ctUSD is issued natively on Citrea, dodging the fragmented bridged tokens that have been giving Bitcoin DeFi a splitting headache.
The token is issued by MoonPay, a crypto payments company, and powered by M0’s stablecoin infrastructure. It aims to solve the liquidity fragmentation issue by providing a single, compliant asset, eliminating the risk and slippage from multiple bridged versions—because nothing ruins a good trade like slippage thicker than a degen’s coffee.
“Fragmentation is a symptom of bridging, and we solve it by design: ctUSD is natively issued on Citrea,” said Orkun Kilic, CEO of Chainway Labs. “There are no bridged versions to fracture liquidity; there is only one canonical asset.” In other words, it’s the one stablecoin to rule them all, not a bag of copies fighting for dominance.
ctUSD will be accessible in 49 U.S. states (excluding New York) and over 160 countries outside the European Economic Area and Canada. MoonPay’s compliance framework includes the ability to freeze or blacklist addresses when required by law, because even in crypto, sometimes the cops show up to the party.
The launch also includes developer tools like virtual bank accounts via Iron for fiat conversion, and integrations with Swaps.xyz for cross-chain swaps and Helio for merchant payments, positioning ctUSD as a banking rail for Bitcoin-native finance. It’s the kind of infrastructure that makes building on Bitcoin feel less like duct-taping pipes and more like plumbing that actually works.
