Paving the way for a future where the easiest way to use Bitcoin is privately

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands, Sept. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Citrea, the Bitcoin application layer backed by Founders Fund and Galaxy Ventures, today announced the acquisition of Crest, a self-custodial private Bitcoin wallet. Citrea and Crest aim to make private Bitcoin effortless, intuitive, and practical for everyone.

With a market capitalization exceeding $1.5 trillion, Bitcoin's transparent public ledger has turned user balances, counterparties, and transaction histories into surveillance targets. The consequences of this transparency will only compound as the asset class grows and surveillance technology improves.

Today, Bitcoin users seeking privacy must either forfeit self-custody, navigate expert-only technical workflows or swap into alternative privacy assets. Networks like Zcash already demonstrated the immense demand for simple and intuitive privacy. With this acquisition, Citrea commits its resources to bring that same effortless privacy standard to Bitcoin.

Built on Citrea's Bitcoin-secured execution environment, Crest will set a new benchmark for mobile, self-custodial Bitcoin privacy. To drive this vision forward, Crest founder Meliksah Gurtemel joins Citrea as Product Lead, reflecting a shared belief that privacy should be the easiest and most natural way to interact with Bitcoin.

"Solving Bitcoin privacy is the single largest unlock for meeting real user demand on a Bitcoin layer," said Orkun Mahir Kılıç, Co-founder and CEO of Chainway Labs, a core contributor to Citrea. "Crest is built to be the primary gateway for onboarding users and liquidity from the Bitcoin and privacy ecosystems into Citrea. Acquiring Crest aligns our entire team behind a vision that will generate the most value and adoption for our broader network."

In the coming weeks, Crest will launch its Bitcoin mobile wallet with auto-shielding, private BTC transfers, and seamless cross-chain onboarding from Bitcoin and Ethereum. Crucially, the wallet will enable private cross-chain swaps where BTC can pay EVM addresses in USDC or ETH privately. Over time, the acquisition aims to extend private BTC utility across Citrea's broader ecosystem.

Users can join the waitlist at https://crestapp.xyz/ 

About Citrea

Citrea is the Bitcoin application layer, enabling institutions and users to access Bitcoin capital markets. The platform aims to expand Bitcoin's financial utility while remaining anchored to the network's security model. Citrea is backed by investors including Founders Fund, Galaxy, Maven 11, Delphi Digital, Erik Voorhees, Balaji Srinivasan and more.

For more information, please visit: Citrea website | Citrea X Account

About Crest

Crest is the world's simplest private Bitcoin mobile wallet, bringing zero-knowledge privacy pools to Bitcoin via Citrea. Built to eliminate the technical frictions of legacy privacy tools, Crest makes self-custodial Bitcoin privacy intuitive and practical. Featuring automatic shielding, private BTC transfers, private cross-chain payments and an intuitive mobile interface, Crest is establishing the new standard for effortless, self-custodial Bitcoin privacy.

For more information, please visit: Crest website | Crest X Account