Two record single-mint issues of the Bitcoin-backed token Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) were released to the market within a 10-hour interval. Their total value is about $50 million.
On Thursday, September 24, the issuance of 2316 WBTC was carried out by the Singapore-based crypto fund Three Arrows Capital. The record held until Friday morning, when Alameda Research, the entity behind the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange FTX, issued 2317 WBTC – exactly one coin more.
The newest largest mint ever!
Turns out @SBF_Alameda was also feeling cute.https://t.co/XfrXTEffbv https://t.co/lpg0Xj8hPr— WBTC (@WrappedBTC) September 25, 2020
According to data from the Nansen service, Alameda Research is the largest issuer of WBTC, having issued a total of 37 609 tokens.
Data: Nansen.
Data: Nansen.
WBTC accounts for about 75% of all tokenized Bitcoin.
In a comment to The Block, Alameda founder Sam Bankman-Fried noted that strong demand for WBTC is linked to heightened activity in the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector.
“Yield in DeFi has declined, but remains substantial. Against this backdrop, there is strong demand for Bitcoin in other chains. WBTC remains the largest among such assets and most widespread in DeFi and yield farming,” – he said.
Earlier this week, the Tron development team entered into a strategic partnership with BitGo, under which the Wrapped Bitcoin project is being developed. As part of the collaboration, the WBTC token will be issued on the Tron blockchain as a TRC-20 standard token.
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