MicroStrategy pioneered institutional Bitcoin adoption in 2020 with a $250M purchase, followed by El Salvador making Bitcoin legal tender in 2021, and the U.S. declaring it a strategic reserve asset in 2025. Bitcoin is being increasingly adopted.
As APOLLO and zBTC officially launch on March 27, 2025, a groundbreaking partnership is reshaping Bitcoin liquidity on Solana and setting a new standard for decentralized BTC reserves.
The launch enabled decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) to establish on-chain Bitcoin reserves while positioning zBTC as a community-owned token, creating new opportunities for these organizations.
MonkeDAO Adds zBTC to Reserves
MonkeDAO, Solana’s pioneering NFT DAO formed from the Solana Monkey NFT collections in 2021, aims to be “the premier Web3 community, incubating, investing in, and scaling the most ambitious projects.”
Now, MonkeDAO takes another leap by becoming the first DAO on Solana to adopt zBTC, the community-owned, permissionless Bitcoin asset launched by APOLLO.
This strategic decision establishes a permissionless Bitcoin reserve for MonkeDAO, enhancing its treasury and marking an advancement in DAO's financial autonomy and governance.
Following MonkeDAO’s lead, The Barrows, another vibrant Solana NFT community run by Topo Gigio, has also announced the adoption of zBTC as a treasury asset.
A Brief History of Reserve Assets
A reserve asset is traditionally a financial asset held by central banks or monetary authorities to back their liabilities and support monetary policy. Historically, reserve assets were primarily gold, a system known as the gold standard, prevalent from the 19th to early 20th centuries.
During World War I, the gold standard was temporarily abandoned. Post-World War II, the Bretton Woods system emerged, pegging currencies to the U.S. dollar, which remained convertible to gold.
However, rising inflation and fiscal pressures led President Nixon to suspend the dollar’s gold convertibility in 1971, permanently shifting to a floating exchange rate system by 1973.
Since then, reserve assets have diversified beyond gold, including various foreign currencies, Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), and other financial instruments.
Recently, Bitcoin, regarded as digital gold, has joined these ranks, adopted by companies like MicroStrategy and even nations, and most notably, the United States established Bitcoin as a strategic reserve in early 2025.
zBTC: The Native Bitcoin on Solana
While gold and digital gold have limited utility, zBTC can be actively deployed and put to work within the Solana ecosystem.
Launched by APOLLO, the flagship dApp of Zeus Network and the first Bitcoin On-Chain Exchange on Solana, zBTC is its permissionless, 1:1 BTC-pegged asset.
Although wrapped Bitcoin solutions like cbBTC and WBTC provide blockchain liquidity, their centralized nature raises concerns about transparency and privacy when considered as reserve assets.
Solana DAOs’ adoption of zBTC is not merely a treasury diversification; it signifies a shift toward decentralized, programmable, and owned financial reserves.
This empowers DAOs to leverage Bitcoin’s trusted value within Solana’s high-performance DeFi ecosystem, enabling enhanced capital efficiency and new yield opportunities.
Now On: The Race of On-chain Bitcoin Reserves
While Ethereum has been pioneering Bitcoin on-chain liquidity through wrapped tokens, Solana entered this space more recently with WBTC and cbBTC in 2024.
While zBTC brings Bitcoin’s trust and stability into the high-speed world of Solana, it opens the door to a new economic architecture where decentralized organizations wield the power of programmable, composable reserves.
This is just the beginning: A new race of on-chain Bitcoin adoption has begun, with zBTC leading the movement for Solana.
