Coinbase has formally launched its wrapped Bitcoin token, cbBTC, on its layer-2 community, Base, and Ethereum mainnet, in accordance with 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 mechanically converts to cbBTC and vice versa.
Wrapped Bitcoin tokens permit customers to leverage their BTC on different networks. So, the change famous that cbBTC goals to drive modern monetary functions 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 out there through the Coinbase software in Singapore, the UK, the European Financial Space, Australia, Brazil, and the US (excluding New York State). The asset can even be accessible globally on Base and Ethereum.
Information 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 property with the Brian Armstrong-led change.
WBTC troubles
Coinbase’s launch of cbBTC comes at an attention-grabbing time because the dominant Wrapped Bitcoin token issued by BitGo WBTC faces challenges.
Over the previous month, crypto customers have sought alternate options to WBTC as a result 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 as a result of his observe file.
Because of this, a number of initiatives have been searching for to make the most of the fallout to push a Bitcoin wrapper product.
Earlier this month, 21.co, the dad or mum 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 save lots of the extra well-liked BTC product.