Garden

Garden is a Bitcoin liquidity layer focused on instant, non-custodial cross-chain swaps. Its core business enables native BTC to be exchanged directly with assets on EVM chains (Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, etc.) and Solana, without wrapped tokens or centralized custody. The protocol uses Hash Time Locked Contracts (HTLC) and a solver network to facilitate atomic swaps, ensuring that funds move only when all conditions are met. Its main value proposition is solving the liquidity fragmentation and trust issues in Bitcoin DeFi: traditional bridges rely on wrapped assets (like WBTC) or custodians, which introduce counterparty risk and inefficiency. Garden's design allows users to maintain control of their BTC throughout the swap, while solvers compete to provide the best rates, improving capital efficiency. Over the past six months (March to September 2026), Garden experienced both growth and challenges. It integrated with LI.FI, becoming a native BTC route provider for the aggregator, and by mid-2026 handled a significant share of BTC-related swaps on that platform. However, in March 2026, the protocol suffered an exploit: an attacker compromised the off-chain database of an independent solver, inserting fraudulent transaction records that caused the solver to release funds for swaps that were never funded. Approximately $450,000 in USDT was drained across four chains. Garden paused its services as a precaution, stating that its core protocol and HTLC contracts were not compromised and no user funds were at risk. This incident followed a similar solver-related attack in October 2025, which resulted in losses of around $10.8-11 million. Both events were isolated to solver infrastructure, not the protocol itself. As of September 2026, Garden was working with security firms to recover funds and planned to resume services after completing its review.