Coinbase’s wrapped Bitcoin product, cbBTC, will soon launch on the Solana network. The exchange country director for Singapore, Hassan Ahmed, disclosed this at the Solana Breakpoint event.
According to Hassan, although Coinbase initially launched cbBTC on Base and Ethereum, the exchange is also considering an expansion to Solana because several of its users love the network.
He said:
“We recently launched cbBTC on Base, but our users love Solana, and so do we. So we are very excited to announce that we will bringing native cbBTC to Solana as well.”
With the move, cbBTC will join the other wrapped Bitcoins that have launched or are considering launching on the Solana network. Less than 24 hours ago, Bitcoin layer-2 network Stacks also revealed that it will integrate its tokenized synthetic Bitcoin (sBTC) into Solana.
While cbBTC is a centralized version of wrapped Bitcoin, as opposed to sBTC, which is decentralized, the two serve the same purpose by allowing the use of Bitcoin on a programmable network such as Solana. Integrating these wrapped Bitcoin alternatives could boost available liquidity for Solana decentralized applications (dApps) as it allows Bitcoin holders to participate in the DeFi ecosystem on the network.
cbBTC sees massive transaction activity as supply keeps increasing
Meanwhile, integrating cbBTC on Solana could be a major boost for the newly launched wrapped Bitcoin. Although it has only been around for a week and on two networks, it already has a supply of $124.27 million, and transaction volume in the last 24 hours stands at $606.95 million, showing that it is being used massively.
However, cbBTC still has a long way to go compared to the BitGo-wrapped Bitcoin WBTC, which is the biggest by all metrics. WBTC accounts for 96.6% of wrapped Bitcoin supply on Ethereum, with almost $10 billion in the market. By deploying on Solana, it could position itself to attract more users and see its supply grow.
Still, one factor that might favor cbBTC in its competition with WBTC is the recent controversy surrounding the transfer of WBTC reserves custody to a joint venture. Many in the DeFi community have already raised concerns about the move and could shift to cbBTC when it happens.
Nevertheless, cbBTC has its detractors. Although it enjoys stability due to its association with Coinbase, there are concerns that its centralized nature could prove dangerous for Bitcoin as it gives Coinbase control to free BTC holders. Tron founder and one of the backers of the new venture for WBTC, Justin Sun, has criticized the move as a dark day for Bitcoin even though Coinbase assured users that nothing will happen to their Bitcoin.
SOL rise 8% over one week
Meanwhile, the Coinbase announcement did not include a timeline for when exactly it would deploy on Solana, but the news adds to what has been a busy and bullish week for the network due to the Breakpoint Conference. Its native token, SOL, has benefited significantly, gaining over 8% over the last seven days. It is currently trading at around $148.
With the Breakpoint conference now over, many users expect to see several integrations and deployments announced at the event in the coming months. The pace at which these integrations happen could determine whether Solana can maintain its bullish momentum.
