Coinbase’s Wrapped Bitcoin has debuted on Solana, marking an effort to invigorate the decentralized finance sector.
According to Coinbase, this move will enable Bitcoin’s integration into Solana’s burgeoning DeFi ecosystem.
As the leading U.S. exchange, Coinbase has launched its wrapped Bitcoin on the Solana platform to boost its usage in the DeFi landscape.
“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 Nov. 7 post on X.
Coinbase stated that it will offer cbBTC as a Solana Program Library (SPL) token, a format that supports both fungible and non-fungible assets on Solana.
“The token is backed 1:1 with Bitcoin and allows users to utilize Bitcoin in Solana’s DeFi ecosystem,” it added.
The exchange listed several Solana-based decentralized exchanges and DeFi protocols where cbBTC will be available, 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,” said the team behind the Solana-based lending, liquidity, and leverage protocol.
During the Breakpoint event in September, Hassan Ahmed, Coinbase’s country director for Singapore, disclosed the plans to bring cbBTC to Solana.
As per Solscan, the Solana blockchain explorer, the firm already moved 135 cbBTC, totaling about $10 million, to the Solana network.
After the failure of soBTC during the collapse of the FTX exchange, cbBTC now fills the gap left by this Solana-based wrapped Bitcoin asset.
The Solana team noted on Nov. 7 that Coinbase’s wrapped BTC joins a rapidly expanding range of programmable Bitcoin variants on Solana, including Threshold’s tBTC, Zeus Network’s zBTC, and WBTC via Wormhole.
Since its launch in mid-September, Coinbase’s wrapped Bitcoin asset has grown to a market value exceeding $1 billion.
BitGo’s Wrapped Bitcoin, seen as the industry benchmark with a market cap of $11 billion, is available on many layer-1 and layer-2 networks, positioning it as a competitor to Coinbase’s wrapped Bitcoin.
According to DefiLlama, Solana DeFi witnessed a substantial recovery in 2024, with total value locked expanding by 250%, reaching a total of $8.25 billion.
The recovery in Ethereum DeFi has been more gradual, yet its TVL has risen by 72% in 2024, reaching $60 billion.
As per CoinGecko, prices increased by 3.4% since the announcement, rising to $200 in early trading on Nov. 8.
