In line with a Sept. 3 assertion, 21.co, the guardian firm of 21Shares, has launched a wrapped Bitcoin product (21BTC) on the Ethereum blockchain.
The corporate introduced that it has partnered with Stream Merchants, one of many world's main market makers, to launch a product that can give purchasers “peace of thoughts as they discover decentralized functions and new alternatives on the Ethereum blockchain.”
21.co's 21BTC goals to distinguish itself from rivals available on the market by not requiring a bridge and holding the underlying belongings securely in chilly storage.
Eliezer Ndinga, Head of Technique and Enterprise Growth at 21.co stated:
“As one of many largest crypto ETP issuers on this planet, we carry rigorous asset administration greatest practices and operational excellence, accompanied by institutional-grade custodians and safety protocols, to the world of wrapped belongings.”
Bitcoin wrappers are BTC-backed ERC-20 tokens issued on numerous blockchains, backed 1:1 by BTC, and held by a central custodian. To redeem, holders burn the tokens and obtain native BTC, whereas minting entails depositing native Bitcoin and receiving the tokens.
WBTC faces an uphill battle
The launch of 21BTC coincides with challenges going through WBTC, the preferred Bitcoin wrapper with a market capitalization of round $9 billion.
Over the previous month, WBTC has come below intense scrutiny attributable to points surrounding BitGo and TRON founder Justin Solar. On August 9, BitGo introduced plans to switch custody of WBTC to a three way partnership between Solar and crypto custody platform BiT World.
The announcement raised considerations throughout the group, notably about Solar's involvement within the undertaking.
In response, lending protocol Sky (previously MakerDAO) voted to ban new customers from borrowing WBTC, inflicting demand for the asset to say no. In line with knowledge from Dune Analytics, WBTC's provide fell by greater than 1,000 tokens final month, marking the third-largest month-to-month unfavorable change this 12 months.
In mild of those developments, a number of rivals, together with Coinbase, have introduced plans to droop BitGo’s Market dominanceMoreover, DeFi protocol Threshold has proposed merging its BTC “wrapper” token tBTC with WBTC in an effort to salvage extra common BTC merchandise.
