While markets reel, ₿uilders build. Despite turbulence in the wider crypto market, the Rootstock community kept focused on the long-term vision of making Bitcoin work for everyone. Building on a strong start to the year, February was another big month with institutional adoption accelerating, infrastructure hardening, and the ecosystem showing up on the global stage.
Top-tier Bitcoin vaults went live on the network. The PowPeg completed a significant composition change without network downtime. RootstockLabs migrated its bug bounty program to the industry’s leading Web3 security platform. The recently released Messari report validated the Q4 Rootstock story with hard data. And RootstockLabs showed up at two of the most important conversations in the industry.
Institutional BTCFi Keeps Building
Midas integrated with Rootstock, bringing mHyperBTC to the Bitcoin ecosystem. The product tracks BTC-denominated market-neutral strategies managed by Hyperithm, a regulated digital asset manager based in Tokyo and Seoul. Users can mint mHyperBTC with rBTC directly on Rootstock, yield generation that is structured, transparent, and enforced onchain.
This follows January’s Mellow Protocol and Tyr Capital vault launch which saw its first institutional deposits flow in. Read more on this here.
The pattern is becoming clear: serious institutional teams are choosing Rootstock as the infrastructure layer for Bitcoin-secured financial products.
If you’ve missed it previously, the RootstockLabs playbook for CFOs, funds, asset managers and miners to unlock secure, compliant BTC yield opportunities on Bitcoin, is FREE to download. Get it here.
PowPeg Composition Change
At Bitcoin block 8,558,281, the PowPeg composition change was successfully activated. A new SGX-based HSM signer joined the set, while Collider was removed. A new BTC peg-in address went live.
No downtime. No disruption. 100% operational continuity.
Intel SGX-based hardware security modules represent a meaningful step forward in the trust model underpinning the bridge. The PowPeg’s security isn’t static. It evolves through transparent, on-chain governance. Bridging remains secure, stable, and increasingly optimized. Here’s the full story
Messari Validates the Q4 Picture
Messari‘s State of Rootstock report for Q4 2025 is out, and it puts independent numbers on what the community already knew was happening.
- 783,000 total transactions.
- 88% merged mining participation.
- A growing DeFi diversity index.
- Rootstock Institutional launched.
- Reed 8.0 reduced BTC peg-out costs.
- Flyover v2.3 improved bridge UX.
Mercado Bitcoin surpassed $20M in tokenized private credit on the network.
Messari’s coverage signals that Rootstock’s growth story is being tracked at the highest level of crypto analysis. Institutional BTCFi is no longer theoretical. The infrastructure is live, audited, and scaling.
Read the full report here.
Real-World Utility Expands
Through Bitrefill, the RIF token is now usable across 170+ countries for everyday goods (gift cards, eSIMs, and digital products). This is what Bitcoin infrastructure looks like when it moves beyond speculation and into daily utility, particularly in markets where traditional payment rails are limited or expensive.
Beyond that, from the Rootstock ecosystem, Geyser’s All-or-Nothing crowdfunding model, powered by Rootstock, continued gaining traction. New campaigns launched. One project already hit its funding goal. The model stays simple: hit the target or everyone gets a full refund. No partial funding, no ambiguity. Bitcoin-native, trust-minimized capital formation, live on Rootstock right now.
Builders Are Shipping
The February Bitcoin Builders Call covered ZK Proofs on Rootstock using Noir by @devvmichael and integrating x402 payments by @Swarnasn29.
It’s the kind of technical depth that shows where the development frontier actually is, not what might be possible, but what builders are actively working on.
We also hosted Cyclo finance, breaking down how tokenized leverage works on Rootstock.0:01 / 0:25
Bug Bounty Program Launches on Immunefi
RootstockLabs migrated its public bug bounty program from HackerOne to Immunefi , the leading bug bounty platform for Web3 security. The HackerOne track record set a high bar: nearly seven years, 800+ submissions, 53 confirmed and patched vulnerabilities, and over $130,000 paid out, with just one critical severity finding in the program’s entire history.
The Immunefi program builds on that foundation. Up to $200,000 for critical blockchain vulnerabilities. A clearly documented scope covering the Rootstock protocol, bridge infrastructure, and smart contracts. For institutions evaluating Bitcoin DeFi infrastructure, defense in depth is what serious looks like.
Rootstock Collective
In February, Rootstock Collective continued to build momentum across the ecosystem. The DAO surpassed 30 million stRIF, reflecting growing participation and long-term community commitment.
Collective Rewards also continued to deliver value, with over 3 rBTC, 1.25 million RIF, and $8,000 in USDRIF now distributed to builders and contributors through the program.
Progress from ecosystem builders remained strong as well. Zerem Finance successfully passed Milestone 2 of its DAO-approved grant, advancing its integration with Lemon App to bring real-world asset (RWA) lending focused on residential real estate to Rootstock. Meanwhile, Blockscout submitted a new off-chain proposal to develop a Rootstock Global Wallet.
RootstockLabs on the Global Stage
RootstockLabs represented at Consensus Hong Kong and Bitcoin Investor Week in New York City. The team’s reflection on Consensus HK was direct: the conversations happening in Asia around Bitcoin infrastructure are different now. Institutional interest is maturing. The question has shifted from “why Bitcoin?” to “how do we deploy Bitcoin productively?”.
The RootstockLabs team’s also made a presence at the Digital Assets Forum in London, and just last week Ben Sanders, Chief Growth Officer, took stage at the GFTN Forum in Tokyo, Japan.
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What This Month Proved
February showed four threads converging: institutional BTC yield infrastructure is expanding, bridge security continues strengthening without disruption, the security program is scaling, and Bitcoin-native financial rails are becoming globally usable.
From mHyperBTC vault strategies to real-world RIF utility, from a hardened bug bounty program to technical upgrades in the PowPeg, the Rootstock ecosystem is building Bitcoin’s financial layer methodically. No hype cycles. Just infrastructure shipping.
As Diego summed it recently on stage in Japan, “It’s the first time in these 11 years that I’ve been working on this, I know that all the pieces are there. It’s a matter of putting them together.”
