How to Become a Merchant

Merchants serve as the vital gateway layer for the WBTC ecosystem, acting as the authorized intermediaries who interface directly with the Custodians to initiate minting and burning.

Eligibility and Prerequisites

To become an approved ecosystem Merchant, entities must fulfill the following criteria:

• Corporate Status: Applicants must be legally registered institutional entities (e.g., market makers, proprietary trading firms, crypto brokerages, or asset managers).
• Compliance Onboarding: Successful completion of thorough Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) background checks conducted by our regulatory and legal compliance teams.
• Technical Integration: Provision of secure wallet systems capable of signing multi-sig target chain transactions and managing secure native BTC infrastructure.

The Application Pipeline

1. Initial Inquiry Submission: Submit a formal expression of interest through the institutional application portal on the official WBTC website.
2. KYC/AML Vetting: Complete comprehensive corporate identity verification pipelines and supply required proof of funding and regulatory registration details.
3. Governance Review: The standing WBTC governance members review the application request against systemic liquidity requirements.
4. Integration & Address Whitelisting: Once approved, the Merchant’s dedicated public keys are white-listed inside the primary smart contract Controller registries, granting them programmatic access to call the mint and burn methods.