BitGo shifts WBTC cross-chain transfers to Chainlink CCIP

BitGo will replace LayerZero with Chainlink as the exclusive cross-chain provider for Wrapped Bitcoin, migrating more than $7.7 billion in WBTC onto Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol and extending CCIP as the default framework for future BitGo-issued assets. The company said it will standardize WBTC on Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Token standard, which uses a burn-and-mint model to move a single canonical token deployment across networks while allowing BitGo to retain ownership of token contracts and control over transfer limits and cross-chain settings. The move follows heightened scrutiny of bridge security after Kelp DAO’s LayerZero-powered bridge was hit in a $292 million exploit in April. The attack, which Blockhead said was tied to a single-verifier configuration later linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, drained 116,500 rsETH and cascaded into roughly $196 million in bad debt on Aave. Mantle, Lombard, Aave, Kraken, Solv Protocol, Virtuals and Re have also announced plans to move from LayerZero to Chainlink CCIP. WBTC accounts for roughly 45% of the wrapped-bitcoin sector’s market capitalization, making BitGo’s shift one of the largest security-driven infrastructure changes in the sector. The migration brings the cumulative value of announced LayerZero-to-Chainlink transitions to close to $15 billion. BitGo and Chainlink have not published a full chain list or completion timeline for the migration.