We added Zest Protocol to the Borrow on Bitcoin DeFi Rate Index. Zest is a non-custodial Bitcoin lending market on Stacks, a Bitcoin layer-2, where you post sBTC as collateral and borrow USDCx stablecoins against it. With Zest included, the index now tracks 10 protocols, and Zest currently lists the lowest variable borrow rate of any market we cover, about 2.12% APR read live from its onchain contracts.
What Zest is
Zest Protocol has been live on Stacks since March 2024. You deposit sBTC, a token backed 1:1 by Bitcoin and settled on the Bitcoin blockchain, and borrow USDCx, a dollar stablecoin, without selling your Bitcoin. There is no application, no credit check, and no company holding your collateral; it is a set of audited smart contracts on Stacks. We cover how it works, its collateral and rehypothecation model, its liquidation mechanics, and its audits in our Zest Protocol review.
What makes it stand apart from most of the index is the chain and the collateral. The other markets we track mostly run on EVM chains (Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, and others) and take wrapped Bitcoin such as cbBTC or wBTC. Zest runs on Stacks and takes sBTC, whose 1:1 Bitcoin peg is secured through a threshold-signature arrangement on Bitcoin itself rather than a single custodian. It is the first Bitcoin layer-2 market in our index.
What it adds to the index
Our DeFi Rate Index tracks the variable rate to borrow USDC against Bitcoin across permissionless protocols, snapshotted daily and weighted by each market's supplied size. Zest joins that set as the current low end of the range, at roughly 2.12% variable APR. Because the index is weighted by market size and Zest's tracked market is small next to the largest EVM markets, it moves the average very little; its main visible effect is setting the floor of the rate range. Its history in the index starts on the day it was added, since we do not back-fill a period a market was not listed.
The Zest figures update on their own. We read utilization, supplied and borrowed amounts, and the borrow rate directly from Zest's onchain contracts, so the numbers on the page reflect the live state of the protocol rather than a static snapshot.
We track it, we do not rank it on safety
One thing worth being clear about: we list Zest as data, not as a recommendation. We show its rate, utilization, market depth, collateral model, and audit history as facts, and we do not fold them into a safety score or tell you whether Zest is safer or riskier than any other protocol. DeFi is permissionless and exploit-prone, and that assessment is yours to make. Our full approach is in the DeFi methodology, and the numbers behind the index are free to reuse in our machine-readable feed.
See it for yourself
You can see Zest next to every other onchain market in the DeFi Rate Index, read the specifics in our Zest Protocol review, and go straight to the source at zestprotocol.com.
Rates are variable and read from Zest Protocol's onchain contracts as of July 2026. DeFi borrowing carries smart-contract and liquidation risk; confirm current terms on the protocol directly before borrowing.