Case Study BTC Backed

Borrow against your Bitcoin, with the keys split three ways.

BTC Backed lets a holder lock Bitcoin as collateral, take a loan in stablecoins, and get the coins back on repayment, without ever handing sole control to the company. We built the backend, the Bitcoin wallet, and the 2-of-3 multisig escrow that guards the collateral.

Client: BTC Backed (BTCBACKED AG)
Sector: Bitcoin · Lending
Engagement: Backend, wallet, multisig escrow
Stage: Live · Swiss-regulated
Platform: Web app · API

The BTC Backed marketing site: The Swiss standard for Bitcoin-backed loans, a peer-to-peer regulated marketplace for non-custodial lending, with the app shown on a laptop and phone — A Swiss-regulated, peer-to-peer marketplace for non-custodial Bitcoin-backed loans.

By the numbers

2-of-3Keys to move collateral

30+Backend feature modules

VQFSwiss-regulated, Zug

0Keys the platform holds alone

Borrowing against Bitcoin usually means handing it to someone else.

A Bitcoin holder who needs cash, but wants to keep their exposure and avoid a taxable sale, can borrow against the coins instead of selling. The usual catch is custody.

Most lenders take the Bitcoin into a wallet they alone control. The borrower trades price risk for counterparty risk, and a company breach or failure can put the collateral out of reach. For a holder who cares about self-custody, that defeats the point.

BTC Backed set out to run this as a regulated, two-sided marketplace where the platform never has sole control of anyone's coins, and where every loan can be audited against the chain.

A shared vault that needs two of three keys to open.

The collateral sits in a vault that requires two of three keys to move, one held by the borrower, one by the lender, and one by the platform. No single party can touch it alone, and one unresponsive party can't freeze it either. We built the backend, the wallet layer, and the escrow that makes that guarantee hold.

What we owned in the build

A backend of about 30 modules: contracts, escrow, health and liquidation, compliance, pricing, the offers marketplace, disputes and notifications
A Bitcoin wallet layer over Bitcoin Core: address generation, transaction construction, PSBT signing, on-chain monitoring and fee estimation
The 2-of-3 multisig escrow, from the scripts to the platform's keys to the signing flow
The platform's signing key sealed inside an AWS Nitro Enclave so a server breach can't expose it, fed by a self-hosted Bitcoin fee service with public mirrors as failover

The BTC Backed dashboard showing total loan value, locked BTC, LTV risk distribution, next expiry, borrow and lend limits, and smart alerts

The borrower's space

Every loan, its health, and the chain behind it.

A borrower sees total loan value, locked BTC, and an LTV risk band on each contract, with smart alerts for new borrow and lend offers. Underneath, automated liquidation watches each loan against a tamper-resistant price feed and unwinds it safely if the collateral falls too far.

Live health and liquidation engine

See it work

Walkthrough: the marketplace, a loan from offer to escrow, and the borrower dashboard

The hardest part

Real money sits locked on a public blockchain, so every edge case has a dollar attached. The vault has to let two of three parties move funds while the platform alone never can, and a single unresponsive party can't strand the collateral. The platform's key never leaves the hardware it was born in.

Ego Eimi Engineering note · the build

A regulated venture, live, with the collateral logic in production.

BTC Backed runs as BTCBACKED AG, founded in Zug, Switzerland in September 2025, and operates as a VQF member inside Switzerland's regulatory framework for this class of financial service.

The loan lifecycle, the wallet layer, and the multisig escrow are in production behind the marketplace. Usage figures stay with the client to share, so the case rests on what we shipped: a non-custodial vault, a hardware-isolated platform key, and liquidation that holds up when the price moves.

Entity: BTCBACKED AG · Zug, CH
Regulation: VQF member
Founded: September 2025