| Current Rating | 18 |
|---|---|
| Symbol | WBTC |
| Logo |  |
| Price change, 1h | -0.13% |
| Price change, 24h | 0.47% |
| Price change, 7d | 1.68% |
| WBTC current price | $27 017.54 |
| WBTC Market cap | $4 401 017 200 |
| Available supply | 162 895 WBTC |
| Volume, 24h | $107 382 629 |
Wrapped Bitcoin is a tokenized version of Bitcoin (BTC) that runs on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. WBTC is compliant with ERC-20 - the basic compatibility standard of the Ethereum blockchain — allowing it to be fully integrated into the latter’s ecosystem of decentralized exchanges, crypto lending services, prediction markets and other ERC-20-enabled decentralized finance (DeFi) applications.
WBTC is also backed by Bitcoin at a 1:1 ratio via a network of automatically monitored merchants and custodians, ensuring that its price is pegged to Bitcoin at all times and allows users to transfer liquidity between the BTC and the ETH networks in a decentralized and autonomous manner.
Wrapped Bitcoin was first announced on October 26, 2018, and officially launched on January 31, 2019.
The Wrapped Tokens project, of which WBTC is a part, wasn’t founded by individuals but is rather a joint project of three organizations: BitGo, Kyber Network and Ren. BitGo, co-founded in 2013 by American computer scientist and entrepreneur Mike Belshe, is an institutional digital asset custody, trading and financial services firm. In addition to being one of the developers of WBTC, BitGo also serves as its original custodian — the entity that holds WBTC tokens and the keys needed to mint more of them.
Kyber Network is an on-blockchain liquidity protocol that enables the integration of different cryptocurrency tokens and DeFi applications. It was founded in 2017 by Loi Luu, Victor Tran and Yaron Velner and is based in Singapore. Along with Ren, Kyber Network has helped create WBTC and still serves as a merchant on its network — the institution that mints and burns WBTC tokens to maintain the 1:1 ratio of tokens to BTC reserves.
Similarly to Kyber, Ren is a company focused on cross-blockchain integration of cryptocurrency assets and DeFi applications via solutions such as RenBridge, RenVM and others. It was founded in 2017 by Taiyang Zhang and Loong Wang.
By virtue of being the oldest and largest cryptocurrency on the market, Bitcoin can boast a massive user base and a liquidity pool of several dozen billion dollars. However, its blockchain functionality is relatively basic by modern standards. Unlike Bitcoin, Ethereum was built from the ground up to support more advanced use cases by utilizing the technology of smart contracts, giving rise to an entire industry dubbed “decentralized finance.”
Ethereum and products derived from it offer their users such advanced financial instruments as lending and insurance, which do not rely on trusted intermediaries. By “wrapping” BTC in the ERC-20 standard, WBTC enables full integration of a Bitcoin-like asset into this advanced environment of financial decentralized applications, bringing along the immense liquidity associated with the BTC market.
In addition, Wrapped Bitcoin makes the job significantly easier for exchanges, wallets and payment services that work with Ethereum: instead of having to run two separate nodes for ETH and BTC networks, they can support WBTC operations with just an Ethereum node. Finally, Ethereum blockchain’s faster average blocktime — about 15 seconds vs 10 minutes respectively — increases the speed with which WBTC can be transacted, compared to actual bitcoins.
There is no predetermined schedule of WBTC issuance. Instead, WBTC is automatically minted or burned whenever users purchase or sell their tokens for Bitcoin via a system of merchants and custodians. Because Wrapped Bitcoin is always backed by Bitcoin at a 1:1 ratio, the number of tokens in circulation is directly dependent on the amount of Bitcoin reserves in the WBTC network. As of October 2020, that number was just over 94,000 tokens, worth approximately $1 billion in total.
WBTC tokens are secured by the parent blockchain they run on — Ethereum. In turn, ETH is protected by the Ethash proof-of-work function, a representative of the Keccak family of hash functions.
You can buy WBTC on several exchanges, both centralized and decentralized ones, which serve as merchants on the Wrapped Bitcoin network. Some of the major ones include:
* Forex Rating accepts no liability for any errors in the Wrapped Bitcoin Price or WBTC Information. For the most recent information please visit the Wrapped Bitcoin official site.
| # | Cryptocurrency | 7 days | |
| 1 |  |
Bitcoin | 1.6% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 |  |
Ethereum | 5.12% |
| 3 |  |
Tether USDt | 0.03% |
| 4 |  |
BNB | 2.28% |
| 5 |  |
XRP | 1.6% |
| 6 |  |
USDC | 0.03% |
| 7 |  |
Lido stETH | -3.32% |
| 8 |  |
Wrapped TRON | 5.27% |
| 9 |  |
Cardano | 3.17% |
| 10 |  |
Solana | 9.48% |
| 11 |  |
Dogecoin | 1.01% |
| 12 |  |
TRON | 5.85% |
| 13 |  |
Toncoin | -7.65% |
| 14 |  |
Dai | -0.01% |
| 15 |  |
Polkadot | 1.93% |
| 16 |  |
Polygon | 2.51% |
| 17 |  |
Litecoin | 1.86% |
| 18 |  |
Bitcoin Cash | 12.69% |
| 19 |  |
Chainlink | 13.57% |
| 20 | |
Wrapped Bitcoin | 1.68% |
| # | Broker | Cryptos | |
| 1 |  |
HFM | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 |  |
OctaFX | |
| 3 |  |
FXCC | |
| 4 |  |
FxPro | |
| 5 |  |
MultiBank Group | |
| 6 |  |
Vantage | |
| 7 |  |
Efixxen | |
| 8 |  |
Exness | |
| 9 |  |
Just2Trade | |
| 10 |  |
Dukascopy | |
| 11 |  |
easyMarkets | |
| 12 |  |
eToro | |
| 13 |  |
Forex4you | |
| 14 |  |
FOREX.com | |
| 15 |  |
Kiexo |
The crypto market has been torn, rising over 2% in the last 24 hours to $1.076 trillion. The excitement came after the approval of the Ethereum Futures ETF from Valkyrie, which will be available for trading from Friday...
29 Sep 2023
Crypto market capitalisation rose 0.7% in 24 hours to 1.053 trillion. This is a return to the levels seen at the end of last week. Cryptocurrencies saw increased buying...
28 Sep 2023
Despite the storm in the equity markets, the crypto market remains subdued, losing only 0.3% in 24 hours to $1.045 trillion. The Crypto Market Fear and Greed Index is dipping into...
27 Sep 2023
The positive correlation between cryptocurrencies and the stock market is temporarily back on track. The crypto market capitalisation approached 1.05 trillion...
26 Sep 2023
Crypto market capitalisation fell to $1.04 trillion from $1.06 at the start of last week. The Crypto's Fear and Greed Index briefly dipped into Fear territory at the end of the week but returned to Neutral (47) on Monday...
25 Sep 2023
The crypto market capitalisation has fallen to $1.056 trillion, losing around 0.9% in the last 24 hours. The main pressure on the market came from outside, as equity indices fell, with the US market losing a further 1.8% on the Nasdaq...
22 Sep 2023
© 2006-2023 Forex-Ratings.com
The usage of this website constitutes acceptance of the following legal information.
Any contracts of financial instruments offered to conclude bear high risks and may result in the full loss of the deposited funds. Prior to making transactions one should get acquainted with the risks to which they relate. All the information featured on the website (reviews, brokers' news, comments, analysis, quotes, forecasts or other information materials provided by Forex Ratings, as well as information provided by the partners), including graphical information about the forex companies, brokers and dealing desks, is intended solely for informational purposes, is not a means of advertising them, and doesn't imply direct instructions for investing. Forex Ratings shall not be liable for any loss, including unlimited loss of funds, which may arise directly or indirectly from the usage of this information. The editorial staff of the website does not bear any responsibility whatsoever for the content of the comments or reviews made by the site users about the forex companies. The entire responsibility for the contents rests with the commentators. Reprint of the materials is available only with the permission of the editorial staff.
We use cookies to improve your experience and to make your stay with us more comfortable. By using Forex-Ratings.com website you agree to the cookies policy.
