Happy Friday, Maestros!

This week, our spotlight is on Garden Finance, the infrastructure solving Bitcoin's fragmentation problem and unlocking native BTC across DeFi.

Meanwhile, U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs posted $2.44B in April inflows, their strongest month of the year, the 30-year Treasury yield hit 5% adding macro pressure on risk assets, the Clarity Act is headed for a Senate committee markup in May, the DOJ signaled it is going after bad actors not builders, and Strategy's $7.2B buying spree over eight weeks is being credited as the primary driver of Bitcoin's recent rally.

Want to make your Bitcoin productive? Whether you're looking to lend or borrow, apply here to get started!

💡Garden Finance

Tens of billions of dollars in Bitcoin sit across DeFi today. Native BTC, wBTC, cbBTC, and assets across Bitcoin L2s.

It is productive capital, but fragmented. Siloed across ecosystems that don’t easily talk to each other.

Garden fixes that.

It is one of the fastest and most cost-efficient ways to move native Bitcoin between chains without giving up custody. Built on an intent-based architecture using Hashed Timelock Contracts, swaps can settle in as little as 30 seconds, peer-to-peer, with no intermediaries and without custodial wrapping risk.

The protocol has moved over $2B in volume, with integrations across Phantom, Hyperliquid, Base, Arbitrum, Solana, and more.

🧠 In One Line

Garden turns fragmented Bitcoin liquidity into a single, composable layer.

🔍 Why Garden Matters

Bitcoin is the largest digital asset in the world. Most of it still sits idle.

The portion that has made it onchain is productive, but stuck. Moving between ecosystems typically means trusting a bridge, accepting custodial risk, or paying significant fees.

Fast, low-cost, trust-minimized BTC movement is the primitive the rest of Bitcoin DeFi is built on. That is the gap Garden fills.

⚡ The Strategy: Intent-Based Architecture

No Custody Risk: HTLCs enable peer-to-peer atomic swaps. Users retain control of their assets throughout the swap.

Solver Network: Swap intents are routed through a network of independent solvers competing for execution. This creates tighter spreads, faster fills, and deeper liquidity.

Cross-Chain by Design: Supported chains include Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Base, BNB Chain, Monad, and more. The protocol is chain-agnostic by design.

Security: In October 2025, a solver operator was compromised in a security incident. The protocol itself was not affected and no user funds were lost.

📌 Investor Takeaway

Bitcoin DeFi has a liquidity problem, not a supply problem.

The BTC is there. It just doesn’t move freely between ecosystems without friction, custody risk, or fees.

Garden is building the infrastructure layer that makes native BTC composable across chains. If that primitive becomes standard, the entire Bitcoin DeFi stack expands with it.

Over $2B in volume suggests the demand is already there.

🚀 Why It’s Trending

Native BTC movement without wrapping.
A live product with real volume.
Deep integrations across the chains where DeFi activity is happening.

This isn’t a future pitch.
It’s infrastructure that’s already being used.

📰 Recent News

• Maestro Partnership: Now integrated with Maestro’s institutional Bitcoin infrastructure, connecting Garden’s liquidity rails to the broader Bitcoin capital markets stack.

• $2B Volume Milestone: Surpassed $2B in cumulative swap volume, a meaningful threshold for a non-custodial, intent-based system.

• Solver Network Expansion: Following the October 2025 security incident, the solver network expanded and a dedicated CISO was brought in to lead ongoing security efforts.

🔮 The Future

Garden is building the liquidity rails for a Bitcoin-native financial system. As BTC expands across more chains and more applications, the need for fast, trustless, native BTC movement only grows. The infrastructure is already live. The market is catching up.

Learn more: garden.finance

Want in? Whether you're looking to lend or borrow, apply here and we'll be in touch.

🚀 Featured Stories

The Clarity Act is headed for a Senate committee markup in May 2026, with Senator Cynthia Lummis confirming the schedule at the Bitcoin Conference in Las Vegas. Senator Thom Tillis has also signaled support, asking Chair Tim Scott to schedule the markup when the Senate returns from recess.

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche, speaking at the Bitcoin 2026 conference in Las Vegas, reaffirmed that the DOJ's focus is on bad actors in crypto, not builders and developers. A significant signal for the industry heading into the Clarity Act debate.

The 30-year U.S. Treasury yield hit 5% this week, its highest level since July 2025, creating macro headwinds for risk assets including Bitcoin. BTC traded around $75,670 as capital rotated toward fixed income alternatives.

Strategy purchased 3,273 BTC for approximately $255M, bringing total holdings to 818,334 BTC acquired for roughly $61.8B. The company has achieved a 9.6% Bitcoin yield year-to-date in 2026.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $2.44B in net inflows in April 2026, the strongest monthly performance of the year and nearly double March's figures. Total AUM across all U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF products now sits at approximately $102B, with BlackRock's IBIT responsible for the bulk of the month's capital.

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WatcherGuru (and echoed by Bitcoin Magazine) reports U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth pushing for America to secure a strategic Bitcoin advantage.

Financial Times reports the Trump sons have taken a major stake in a Kazakh Bitcoin mining operation backed by a $1.6B U.S. government contract.

Bitcoin Magazine shares that Steak ’n Shake is now accepting Bitcoin payments and slashing fees by 50 percent. This proves real world merchant adoption is accelerating beyond hype.

SoSoValueCrypto breaks down major ETF flows. BTC and ETH are seeing significant outflows while XRP pulls in strong inflows. This signals shifting institutional capital across the crypto market.