Coinbase has formally launched its wrapped Bitcoin token, cbBTC, on its layer-2 community, Base, and Ethereum mainnet, in response to a Sept. 12 assertion.
The brand new product comes round a month after Coinbase teased it on the social media platform X.
cbBTC
In accordance with Coinbase, cbBTC is an ERC-20 token absolutely backed by Bitcoin and custodied on the platform. When customers ship BTC from Coinbase to Base or Ethereum, it routinely converts to cbBTC and vice versa.
Wrapped Bitcoin tokens enable customers to leverage their BTC on different networks. So, the alternate famous that cbBTC goals to drive revolutionary monetary purposes and enhance Bitcoin adoption in DeFi.
Already, a number of main DeFi protocols, together with Aave, Morpho, Sky, Compound, Aerodrome, Curve, Veda, Mellow, and the real-world asset platform Maple, have already built-in cbBTC for his or her customers.
Furthermore, cbBTC is obtainable through the Coinbase software in Singapore, the UK, the European Financial Space, Australia, Brazil, and the US (excluding New York State). The asset may also be accessible globally on Base and Ethereum.
Knowledge from blockchain analytics agency Arkham Intelligence reveals that Coinbase holds over 984,000 BTC, valued at roughly $57 billion. In the meantime, most of that is held for exchange-traded fund issuers like BlackRock, who custody their ETF belongings with the Brian Armstrong-led alternate.
WBTC troubles
Coinbase’s launch of cbBTC comes at an fascinating time because the dominant Wrapped Bitcoin token issued by BitGo WBTC faces challenges.
Over the previous month, crypto customers have sought options to WBTC because of BitGo’s new partnership with TRON founder Justin Solar. Whereas the agency has tried to allay these worries, critics have identified that Solar’s involvement poses a risk to the token because of his observe file.
Attributable to this, a number of initiatives have been looking for to reap the benefits of the fallout to push a Bitcoin wrapper product.
Earlier this month, 21.co, the guardian firm of 21Shares, launched its Wrapped Bitcoin product (21BTC) on the Ethereum blockchain. Previous to that, DeFi protocol Threshold has proposed merging its BTC “wrapper” token, tBTC, with WBTC in an effort to avoid wasting the extra well-liked BTC product.
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