{"id":16083,"date":"2024-08-14T12:24:54","date_gmt":"2024-08-14T09:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/coinbase-hints-at-launch-of-wrapped-bitcoin\/"},"modified":"2024-08-14T12:24:54","modified_gmt":"2024-08-14T09:24:54","slug":"coinbase-hints-at-launch-of-wrapped-bitcoin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/coinbase-hints-at-launch-of-wrapped-bitcoin\/","title":{"rendered":"Coinbase Hints at Launch of &#8216;Wrapped&#8217; Bitcoin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has announced the potential launch of a product called cbBTC. Commentators <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Beginning22End\/status\/1823529512358838757\">speculated<\/a> that this refers to its own version of &#8216;wrapped&#8217; Bitcoin.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Coming soon.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Coinbase ?\ufe0f (@coinbase) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/coinbase\/status\/1823529439663403040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 14, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The platform added only the word &#8220;soon&#8221; to its very succinct message.<\/p>\n<p>Almost simultaneously, Jesse Pollak, head of the Coinbase-supported Ethereum Layer 2 network Base, expressed his love for digital gold.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">to say it out loud: I love bitcoin, am so grateful for it&#8217;s role kickstarting crypto, and we&#8217;re going to build a massive bitcoin economy on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/base?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@base<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jesse Pollak (jesse.xyz) ?\ufe0f (@jessepollak) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jessepollak\/status\/1823515062658830681?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 14, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;I am very grateful for its role in the development of cryptocurrencies, and we are going to build a huge Bitcoin economy on Base,&#8221; he noted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Pollak also retweeted a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/1CrypticPoet\/status\/1823548111702073604\">post<\/a> from a user who stated their readiness to immediately transfer their BTC to the L2 network should the opportunity arise.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;There are many such cases,&#8221; responded the head of Base.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Coinbase&#8217;s announcement of cbBTC and Pollak&#8217;s hints came just days after BitGo&#8217;s controversial announcement of a partnership with the Tron ecosystem and its founder Justin Sun.<\/p>\n<p>The issuer of the most popular version of &#8216;wrapped&#8217; Bitcoin, WBTC (with a market capitalization exceeding <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coingecko.com\/\">$9.3 billion<\/a>), will transfer control of the asset to a joint venture with the Hong Kong-registered custodial platform BiT Global, associated with Tron. BitGo will hold a minority stake in the joint venture.<\/p>\n<p>Justin Sun&#8217;s involvement has raised certain concerns within the community.<\/p>\n<p>Risk management firm BA Labs <a href=\"https:\/\/forum.makerdao.com\/t\/wbtc-changes-and-risk-mitigation-10-august-2024\/24844\/5\">warned<\/a> of an &#8220;increased level of risk.&#8221; Experts noted that projects associated with the founder of Tron Foundation have <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/sec-justifies-legal-pursuit-of-justin-sun-due-to-frequent-us-visits\">faced operational and transparency issues<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In a post on the MakerDAO forum, BA Labs proposed closing all new borrowings secured by WBTC and preventing the creation of additional debt.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>&#8220;We believe that Sun&#8217;s involvement as a controlling shareholder in the new WBTC joint venture represents an unacceptable level of risk,&#8221; the company argued.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>BitGo CEO Mike Belshe assured that the core protocols of WBTC remain unaffected\u2014&#8221;just as they are today.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sun confirmed &#8220;no changes&#8221; and emphasized that the partnership does not grant him direct access to funds.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding the cbBTC product, users also expressed concerns, particularly about centralization. One such commentator <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/chenbfang\/status\/1823530115772334500\">was<\/a> BitGo COO Chen Fang.<\/p>\n<p>In turn, Belshe, among others, played on the abbreviation cbBTC as &#8220;Central Bank Bitcoin.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Central Bank BTC <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/tZXWcNDck6\">https:\/\/t.co\/tZXWcNDck6<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mike Belshe (@mikebelshe) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/mikebelshe\/status\/1823525972119052380?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 14, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Earlier, Base became one of the main drivers for the Ethereum-based L2 ecosystem reaching a record 12.52 million transactions processed in a single day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has announced the potential launch of a product called cbBTC. Commentators speculated that this refers to its own version of &#8216;wrapped&#8217; Bitcoin. Coming soon. \u2014 Coinbase ?\ufe0f (@coinbase) August 14, 2024 The platform added only the word &#8220;soon&#8221; to its very succinct message. Almost simultaneously, Jesse Pollak, head of the Coinbase-supported Ethereum [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1321,18,138,1655],"class_list":["post-16083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-base","tag-bitcoin","tag-coinbase","tag-wrapped-bitcoin"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"31","promo_type":"","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}