What is Citrea (CTR)

I. Project Introduction

1. What Is Citrea (CTR)?

Citrea is the first Zero-Knowledge (ZK) Rollup on Bitcoin, developed by Chainway Labs. Its goal is to provide Bitcoin with a native application platform and capital market capabilities without modifying Bitcoin's consensus rules or migrating Bitcoin liquidity. Citrea uses a Type 2 zkEVM (built on RISC Zero) as the execution layer and finally settles zero-knowledge proofs back to Bitcoin via BitVM, achieving a scaling solution truly secured by Bitcoin.

Citrea positions itself not just as a BTC Layer-2, but as the foundation for building the Bitcoin Economy. As the ecosystem matured, Citrea introduced CTR (Coordination Asset) to serve as the asset for governance, incentive coordination, and capital allocation.

2. How Does Citrea Work?

Type 2 zkEVM: Citrea provides an Ethereum-compatible execution environment, enabling developers to migrate existing EVM applications to Bitcoin.

Off-Chain Execution + Bitcoin Settlement: Transactions are executed off-chain on Citrea, and the final state is submitted to Bitcoin via ZK Proofs for verification and settlement.

BitVM Bridge Mechanism: Employs the Clementine Bridge to achieve a low-trust assumption BTC two-way peg.

CTR / xCTR Coordination Model: Users can stake CTR to obtain xCTR (a non-transferable governance asset) to participate in capital allocation, incentive distribution, and network governance.

Dual Treasury Mechanism: The Ecosystem Governance Treasury is managed by xCTR, while the Foundation Treasury handles R&D, growth, and long-term strategy.

3. Who Founded Citrea?

Founding Team: Citrea is developed by Chainway Labs. The company, founded in 2022, is composed of members with backgrounds in cryptography, Zero-Knowledge proofs, and computer science. Many members have IMO / IOI backgrounds.

Funding Details:

February 2024: Completed a $2.7 million Seed round with investors including Galaxy Ventures, Delphi Ventures, Eric Wall, and Anurag Arjun.

October 2024: Completed a $14 million Series A round with investors including Founders Fund, Maven11, Mirana Ventures, and Dao5.

4. Citrea Tokenomics

Token Name: CTR

Total Token Supply: 10,000,000,000 (10 billion)

Token Utility: Coordinates ecosystem capital allocation, powers network governance, enables xCTR staking and voting, manages incentive emissions and liquidity coordination, and drives protocol growth governance.

Token Distribution:

Community & Ecosystem: 60%

Of which: Genesis Initial Claim 12%

Governance Treasury: 25.16%

Ecosystem Growth: 22.83%

Investors: 19.35%

Early Contributors: 20.66%

Vesting & Locking Mechanism:

Investors + Contributors: Subject to a 1-year lock-up period followed by a 4-year linear release phase.

xCTR: Obtained by staking CTR; entirely non-transferable.

5. Timeline of Key Milestones

2022: Chainway Labs is established, initiating R&D for Bitcoin ZK Rollup.

February 2024: Citrea is officially announced, and completes its $2.7 million seed funding round.

Q3 2024: The testnet goes live.

October 2024: Completes its $14 million Series A funding round.

January 27, 2026: The Citrea mainnet officially goes live.

May 2026: Officially announces CTR (Coordination Asset) and the xCTR governance model, kicking off the user-driven Bitcoin Economy.​

II. Token Information

III. Related Links