What Is Citrea (CTR) Crypto? Tokenomics, Holders and Risks
Citrea is a zero-knowledge rollup on Bitcoin, a faster layer for apps that settles back to Bitcoin, and CTR is its governance token. On 27 October 2026, 15% of the 10 billion CTR circulated, and one Korean exchange carried 90.92% of the day's volume.
What money in CTR became
Type any amount. Results use CoinMarketCap daily CTR closes up to 26 October 2026.
Each line divides the CoinMarketCap CTR close on 26 October 2026 by the close on the start date. CoinGecko’s prices agree to a median 0.10%. Fees, spreads and taxes are left out.
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Covered on this page, for traders outside the US: WEEX.
Citrea is one of the better-funded attempts to give Bitcoin the kind of apps that run on Ethereum. Its network went live in January 2026 and its CTR token followed on 26 May 2026.
On paper it is one of the most solid projects in this test. The trading in its token is the opposite: on the day we measured, almost all of it came from one exchange, in amounts far larger than the order book could explain.
How it works: what Citrea says it builds
Citrea’s docs describe it as a zero-knowledge rollup on Bitcoin. Transactions run on Citrea, and cryptographic proofs of them are written to Bitcoin, so the record ends up on the most secure chain. It runs the same kind of smart contracts as Ethereum and uses BTC for fees.
Its bridge, Clementine, moves bitcoin in and out. It is built on BitVM, a way of checking work on Bitcoin without changing Bitcoin itself. The docs say the network and the bridge have been live on Bitcoin since January 2026, and the blog announced mainnet on 27 January 2026.
CTR is the coordination token. Holders lock CTR as xCTR to vote on how incentives and the treasury are spent and on protocol proposals. Network fees are paid in BTC, not CTR.
Team, backers and funding
Citrea is built by Chainway Labs. Citrea’s blog names Orkun Kilic as co-founder and CEO of Chainway Labs, and he sits on the Citrea Foundation’s board with Murat Karademir and an independent director based in the Cayman Islands.
Two rounds are announced on Citrea’s own blog. A $2.7 million seed round, closed in 2023 and led by Galaxy, with Delphi Ventures among others. Then a $14 million Series A led by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund, with Maven11, Mirana and dao5 among others, for $16.7 million in total.
CTR tokenomics: supply, allocation and unlocks
The docs give a fixed supply of 10,000,000,000 CTR. The split:
| Group | Share | Terms, per Citrea |
|---|---|---|
| Initial Claims | 12% | airdrop and launch distributions |
| Incentives and Treasury | 25.16% | locked in a contract; released only by xCTR vote |
| Ecosystem Growth and R&D | 22.83% | unlocked at launch, held by the Foundation |
| Investors | 19.35% | over 4 years with a 1-year cliff |
| Early Contributors | 20.66% | over 4 years with a 1-year cliff |
Unlocked is not the same as circulating here. The docs say 34.83% was unlocked at launch but 15% was circulating on 25 June 2026, because the Foundation’s ecosystem share is unlocked but held back.
CoinMarketCap counts 1.5 billion CTR, 15.00%, giving a market value of $24.4 million against a fully diluted value of $162.6 million (price $0.01626, 27 October, 07:34 UTC).
The first investor and contributor tokens can unlock from about May 2027, a year after launch. The docs do not say how much lands on the cliff date. The tracker Tokenomics.com estimates 1.1% of supply on 26 May 2027, then monthly amounts to 2030.
One detail to know: the contract can mint. The docs for the CTR contract list a MINTER_ROLE that “can mint new CTR tokens”, even though the supply page describes a fixed 10 billion.
On 27 October the Citrea DAO contract held the token’s admin role, which can grant MINTER_ROLE; we did not find which address, if any, holds MINTER_ROLE itself.
Where CTR trades
CTR is listed in 27 markets, including Coinbase, Kraken, KuCoin and Gate. But in the 24 hours to 27 October, Bithumb’s CTR/KRW market carried $100.4 million of the $110.5 million CoinMarketCap counted, 90.92%. LBank had 3.79% and the Aerodrome pool on Base 2.54%. Coinbase had 0.41%.
That is 4.53 times the token’s market value in one day, and the order book was thin. CoinMarketCap measured about $19,186 of buy orders and $18,464 of sell orders within 2% of the price on Bithumb’s market. A burst of trading like this can stop as suddenly as it started.
CTR lives on Citrea, with a bridged copy on Base. The Citrea address is 0x547AfD93B9c47D552059FEb556909e017f8a9b25 and the Base address is 0x11030f79109269d796fd0fb956d6244e502757f7, both from Citrea’s docs.
A worked example: $1,000 at the first close
CTR’s first day, 26 May 2026, opened at $0.02199, touched $0.03811 and closed at $0.01881. A $1,000 purchase at that close bought about 53,170 CTR.
Two months later the stake was worth about $382. CTR closed at $0.00719 on 27 July 2026, 61.90% below its high close: 53,170 × $0.00719.
By 26 October the close was $0.01659, and 53,170 × $0.01659 is about $882. Bought on 26 September at $0.01245, $1,000 had become $1,333; bought at the July low, $2,308.
The volume figure changes how to read that recovery. Much of the rise since September happened while Korean trading dominated, so the price on any single day says more about Bithumb than about Citrea.
The original data: who holds CTR
We read the largest holders from Citrea’s own block explorer on 27 October. There were 457 holder addresses on the Citrea chain, and the top ten held 98.89% of the supply.
| Rank | Share | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 25.15% | Citrea DAO contract, per Citrea’s docs |
| 2 | 20.66% | plain wallet, no label |
| 3 | 19.35% | plain wallet, no label |
| 4 | 14.23% | plain wallet, no label |
| 5 | 10.17% | verified bridge contract, CitreaTokenOFTAdapter |
The sizes line up with the allocation table. The DAO holds 25.15%, almost exactly the 25.16% Incentives and Treasury share. The second and third wallets hold 20.66% and 19.35%, the exact shares of Early Contributors and Investors.
The fifth is a verified contract named CitreaTokenOFTAdapter, a bridge, and its balance matches the 1.0168 billion CTR on Base. The matches for the second and third wallets are our reading; no label says who holds them.
The investor and contributor wallets are ordinary wallets, not contracts. Nothing on the chain stops them from moving tokens before the 1-year cliff. They may be held by a custodian under a legal lockup, but we could not see one, so the cliff rests on the project’s word.
The price fell for two months, then recovered part of the way. CTR closed at $0.01245 on 26 September and $0.01659 on 26 October, up 33.29%. CoinGecko agrees with CoinMarketCap to a median 0.10% across all 154 days.
Our vetting scorecard, 27 October 2026. CTR passed, flagged risky.
| Check | Result |
|---|---|
| Public documents | Pass: docs, blog, open GitHub |
| Live product | Pass: mainnet since January 2026 |
| Major venues | Pass: Coinbase, Kraken, KuCoin, Gate |
| Volume vs market value | Fail on its face: 4.53 times, 90.92% one venue |
| Largest holder identified | Pass: Citrea DAO contract |
| Float | 15.00% |
The daily prices are published as the Citrea daily price file, and the venues with their depth as the Citrea market list.
When it fails: the risks we found
The volume is not a sign of broad demand. One won market traded more than four times the token’s value in a day against about $19,000 of depth near the price. When a burst like that ends, the price can fall faster than it rose.
The insider tokens are not locked on-chain. 40.01% of supply sits with investors and early contributors in plain wallets. If the lockup is honored, the first tokens arrive around May 2027; if it is not, nothing in the code prevents an earlier sale.
Ten addresses hold almost everything. With 98.89% in ten addresses and 457 holders in total on the Citrea chain, most people who own CTR hold it through an exchange or on Base.
A mint function exists. Fixed supply is a promise in the docs, not a limit in the code, as long as some address holds MINTER_ROLE.
The price has never beaten its first week. CTR’s best close came on 31 May 2026 at $0.01887. The token traded 61.90% below that on 27 July before its rebound.
Copycats use the Citrea name and the CTR ticker. A token called “Citrea CTR” on Avalanche at 0xfbF0755524Aba21A21C5c5764642c819e72Aeaf9 is not the project’s, and several unrelated tokens, including a Solana meme coin, use CTR.
FAQ
What is Citrea in simple terms?
A second layer on top of Bitcoin where apps can run, with proofs of everything written back to Bitcoin. It went live in January 2026.
Who is behind Citrea?
Chainway Labs, led by co-founder and CEO Orkun Kilic, backed by Galaxy in its seed round and by Founders Fund in its Series A.
When do CTR tokens unlock?
Investor and early contributor tokens, 40.01% of supply, unlock over four years with a one-year cliff from the May 2026 launch. The treasury share is released only by governance vote.
What is the CTR contract address?
On Citrea, 0x547AfD93B9c47D552059FEb556909e017f8a9b25. On Base, 0x11030f79109269d796fd0fb956d6244e502757f7.
Related
Citrea exists to extend Bitcoin, and the Bitcoin page covers the base layer it settles to. CTR is one of many new altcoins, and the trading pattern above is a case study in liquidity risk: volume that is there one day and gone the next.
Before sending money to any new token, read how to avoid a crypto scam. For a token whose biggest wallet is a verified timelock rather than plain wallets, see the Cap profile.
When almost all of a token’s volume comes from one exchange in one country, the chart tells you about that exchange more than the project. Check the order book depth before trusting the volume figure.
— Michael Whitman
This page is educational, not financial advice. Test every idea on your own charts before risking money. Some links on this page earn a commission if you buy through them. It costs you nothing and it does not decide what appears here or in what order — how these pages are made is set out in our methodology.