Lombard Finance Launches Bard Token to Strengthen BTC Onchain

The race to bring Bitcoin fully on-chain is heating up, and Lombard Finance is making big moves. Just over a year after launching LBTC, its Bitcoin liquid staking token, the company has now unveiled its latest product, the Bard token. Backed by a new foundation and a growing ecosystem of partnerships, Bard marks the next step in Lombard’s plan to build an entire capital market on top of Bitcoin.

Awakening Bitcoin’s Liquidity

People have thought of Bitcoin as “digital gold” for years, a way to store value that investors usually just keep. Bitcoin wasn’t made to support staking or complicated financial tools like Ethereum and other smart contract platforms were. This meant that trillions of dollars in Bitcoin were sitting around, not earning any interest and not being able to fully participate in DeFi.

That started to change in late 2024 when new technology made it possible to stake native Bitcoin without putting its security at risk. Lombard took advantage of this chance and created LBTC, a token that stands for staked Bitcoin and can be used on DeFi platforms.

LBTC has grown quickly in just one year. It is now on 13 blockchains, works with over 70 protocols, and has more than $2 billion in value locked up. Institutions and people who have held Bitcoin for a long time have noticed this because LBTC lets them use their Bitcoin without having to trust centralized custodians.

Enter the Bard Token

Lombard is making it clear that LBTC was just the beginning with the release of Bard Token. Analysts say that Bard is meant to help Lombard grow and make the ecosystem stronger. It has its own foundation that will be in charge of development, governance, and partnerships as the project moves on to the next stage.

According to CoinMarketCap, Bard’s token sale valued the project at $450 million, which shows that early investors have a lot of faith in it. The sale brought in new money to help Lombard’s plans, which include making Bitcoin-based financial products available in a marketplace, adding more integrations with major platforms, and building infrastructure that makes it easier to use Bitcoin on-chain.

Why Institutions Care

Institutional investors are playing a growing role in crypto, and Bitcoin is their top focus. A lot of these companies already handle billions of dollars in BTC. But instead of just keeping it, they’re now looking for ways to get more returns while still following the rules.

This is where Lombard comes in. LBTC and Bard give institutions a way to activate their Bitcoin on-chain, access new yield strategies, and participate in DeFi in a secure, transparent way. Partnerships with well-known names in the crypto industry, from staking providers like Figment and Galaxy to DeFi platforms like Aave and Curve, add further legitimacy.

From Liquidity to Full Capital Markets

Lombard has set out a three-phase plan. Phase I was all about “activating liquidity” with LBTC, which has already been a success. Phase II, which is now in progress, is all about building capital markets by creating the tools, infrastructure, and connections that make it possible for Bitcoin to be used like any other financial asset.

At this point, Bard is very important because it helps coordinate governance and supports new products like lending vaults, yield strategies, and derivatives backed by Bitcoin. The goal of Phase III, the last stage, is to make Lombard the base layer for Bitcoin’s on-chain economy, the platform that developers, businesses, and users all use.

Final Thoughts

In just one year, Lombard has gotten a lot of attention by showing that Bitcoin can be more than just a place to store value. The launch of Bard Token is the first step toward a full-scale Bitcoin financial system on-chain.

If Lombard works, it could be the start of a new era in which Bitcoin is not only held but also used in a thriving global ecosystem.

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