Zest Protocol Announces Stacks Vaults, Bringing Automated Yield Strategies to Bitcoin-Native Finance
George Town, Cayman Islands, July 28th, 2026, Chainwire
Zest Protocol today announces Stacks Vaults, a new vault layer built on top of its lending markets. Stacks Vaults will let users deposit a single asset into an automated strategy that manages yield on their behalf. The first Stacks Vault will be built around stBTC, the liquid staking Bitcoin token Stacking DAO introduced recently.
Stacks Vaults marks the evolution of Zest Protocol from a lending market into yield infrastructure. Until now, earning optimized yield on Stacks required actively managing positions across markets. Stacks Vaults change that: a holder deposits once, selects a strategy, and the vault handles the mechanics in the background.
The first vault will be an stBTC looping vault. A holder will deposit stBTC, and the vault will use it as collateral to borrow sBTC, stake the borrowed Bitcoin into stBTC, and repeat the process to compound yield on top of the base Bitcoin Staking rewards. The holder maintains a single position while Zest Protocol manages the strategy automatically.
“Lending markets were the foundation. Vaults are what gets built on top,” said Tycho Onnasch, Founder, Zest Protocol. “With Stacks Vaults, a holder deposits a single asset and the strategy runs itself. The stBTC looping vault is the first, and it won’t be the last. Every yield source on Stacks becomes a strategy we can automate.”
The speed of this announcement is as significant as the product itself. Bitcoin Staking creates the base yield, stBTC carries that yield into the ecosystem as a liquid asset, and Stacks Vaults will be the first infrastructure built to put it to work. Additional vaults with different assets and strategies are expected to follow, each built on the same automated foundation.
Zest Protocol is the leading Bitcoin lending protocol on Stacks, with $70M deployed across its platform and a track record of over two years serving the Bitcoin-native finance ecosystem. The ZEST token went live in May 2026 in one of the most successful token launches of the year. Zest Protocol has spent years building the lending infrastructure that Bitcoin-native finance now runs on, and Stacks Vaults is the next layer in that stack.
Stacks Vaults and the stBTC looping vault will launch alongside stBTC before Stacks Bitcoin Staking goes live. Holders will be able to deposit sBTC or stBTC directly into the vault, while Zest Protocol automatically manages the looping strategy and continuously monitors the position. More details will be available at zestprotocol.com.
About Zest Protocol
Zest Protocol is a lending protocol built for Bitcoin, giving BTC holders ways to borrow, lend, and earn yield without leaving Bitcoin-native infrastructure. Learn more at zestprotocol.com.
About Stacks
Stacks is growing Bitcoin by turning idle Bitcoin into productive capital. The network enables self-custodial Bitcoin yield and a growing ecosystem of Bitcoin-native financial applications that settle on Bitcoin. Learn more at stacks.co.