Coinbase wrapped Bitcoin deploys on Solana, aimed at growing DeFi market
2024-11-08

America’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, has deployed its version of wrapped Bitcoin on the layer-1 blockchain Solana as it seeks to expand the adoption of the asset in decentralized finance (DeFi). 
“This is the first token Coinbase has issued on Solana, and with it, we’re excited to bring easy access to BTC,” the company said in a post on X announcing the deployment on Nov. 7.
Coinbase added that cbBTC will take the form of a Solana Program Library (SPL) token, a Solana-based token that can represent both fungible and non-fungible assets. 
“The token is backed 1:1 with Bitcoin and allows users to utilize Bitcoin in Solana’s DeFi ecosystem,” it added. 
It listed several Solana-base decentralized exchanges and DeFi protocols that cbBTC will be available on, including Jupiter, Meteora, Kamino Finance, Raydium, Phoenix, Jito, and Drift. 
“Bitcoin is king, and the vision is for Kamino to be one of the largest cbBTC venues in DeFi,” stated the team behind the Solana-based lending, liquidity, and leverage protocol. 
Coinbase’s country director for Singapore, Hassan Ahmed, first announced plans to launch cbBTC on Solana and the Breakpoint event in September. 
The firm has already deployed around 135 cbBTC worth roughly $10 million to Solana, according to the Solana blockchain explorer Solscan. 
Additionally, cbBTC fills a gap left by soBTC, a previous Solana-based wrapped Bitcoin asset that depegged and failed during the collapse of the FTX exchange. 
The Coinbase asset is not the only version of wrapped BTC on Solana as it joins a growing group of programmable Bitcoin variants on the network, including Threshold’s tBTC, Zeus Network’s zBTC, and WBTC via Wormhole, stated the Solana team on Nov. 7.
Coinbase’s wrapped Bitcoin asset has seen its market capitalization surge to more than $1 billion since its launch in mid-September.
It competes with BitGo’s rival, Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), which has a market cap of $11 billion and is considered the industry standard available on a wide range of layer-1 and layer-2 networks. 
Solana DeFi has seen a remarkable recovery in 2024, with total value locked increasing 250% since the beginning of the year, reaching $8.25 billion, according to DefiLlama.
Ethereum DeFi recovery has been much slower, but it still has $60 billion in TVL, which has increased 72% so far this year. 
SOL prices reacted with a 3.4% gain since the announcement, tapping $200 during early trading on Nov. 8, according to CoinGecko. 