Lombard, Bitwise to Offer Bitcoin Yield and Lending for Institutions

Institutional Bitcoin holdings are mostly kept with qualified custodians. Accessing DeFi yields or collateralized loans has traditionally required moving the assets, using cross-chain bridges and assuming counterparty risk. Lombard’s Bitcoin Smart Accounts allow BTC to remain in its original account with ownership unchanged while still serving as onchain capital, targeting an institutional custody market worth about $500 billion.

Lombard announced a partnership with Bitwise Asset Management on March 24, 2026, with the service scheduled to launch in the second quarter of the same year. Bitwise will design yield strategies combining DeFi lending with selected tokenized real-world assets, while Morpho will provide liquidity for borrowing stablecoins against Bitcoin. Lombard plans to add more custody and protocol integrations during the year.