Templar Launches $100 Million Bitcoin Loan Program

Seamless BTC Loans Without Strings

Templar went live on mainnet on September 22, but the excitement in October—fueled by new integrations and $100 million in pledges—marked its true market entry. Users can now collateralize BTC directly through immutable smart contracts on a decentralized peer-to-peer network, receiving USDC or USDT in return, all without packaging assets into an ERC-20 token or connecting to Ethereum. The process is incredibly simple: Deposit BTC into the protocol's secure vault and disbursements happen automatically—no human oversight, no admin keys required.

A $100 million treasury, sourced from institutional investors and liquidity providers, supports the initial lending capacity, offering competitive interest rates of 4-6% APR on stablecoin loans. Designed permissionless, anyone with a compatible wallet can participate, with open source code audited by leading firms such as Trail of Bits.

MPC Magic and Immutable Protections

At the core of Templar is Multi-Party Computation (MPC) - a cryptographic technology that distributes control of collateral across nodes, ensuring no single entity can seize or censor funds. BTC remains the native asset on the Bitcoin chain, with smart contracts applying liquidation thresholds (e.g., 150% collateralization ratio) via oracle feeds from Chainlink. Return stablecoins plus interest, get BTC back instantly.

This avoids the pitfalls of Wrapped BTC (wBTC) protocols like Aave, where custodians hold control. Instead, Templar leverages Bitcoin's UTXO model to ensure granular privacy, allowing users to lend out a portion of their holdings without revealing their entire balance. Initial figures show $5.2 million TVL within 24 hours of full deployment, with loan volume reaching $1.8 million.

Protection from predatory eyes

Templar's "privacy-first" philosophy isn't just rhetoric—it's designed into the system. On-chain transactions are obfuscated through address obfuscation and ephemeral keys, while the MPC network fragments private data between participants, making it useless to any single actor. The roadmap introduces zero-knowledge proofs to prevent "predatory liquidations" where bots front-run, and differential privacy to anonymize aggregate lending statistics.

Royal F00l, a pseudonymous Bitcoin maximalist, sees this as an ideological battle: “Institutions have emerged and they are acquiring BTC using centralized custody systems… Bitcoin was created to replace banks, not to be a new toy asset class for Wall Street to financialize and control.” In a context affected by Chainalysis’ scrutiny and IRS reporting regulations, Templar’s ​​veil of obscurity could appeal to Monero privacy advocates and high-net-worth BTC holders.

Evaluation and Conclusion

The launch of Templar marks a new chapter in Bitcoin finance, moving from a centralized lending model to a decentralized, privacy-centric credit market. If the $100 million pilot is successful, Templar could become the benchmark for institutional-grade Bitcoin lending, potentially expanding to structured credit, derivatives, and BTC-backed tokenized debt instruments.

Disclaimer: The information presented in this article is the author's personal opinion in the cryptocurrency field. It is not intended to be financial or investment advice. Any investment decision should be based on careful consideration of your personal portfolio and risk tolerance. The views expressed in this article do not represent the official position of the platform. We recommend that readers conduct their own research and consult with a professional before making any investment decisions.