21.co, the parent firm of 21Shares, has launched its Wrapped Bitcoin product (21BTC) on the Ethereum blockchain in collaboration with Flow Traders.
The product’s objective is to offer users a sense of security while they navigate decentralized applications and explore new possibilities on the Ethereum blockchain. 21BTC use cold storage to safely hold the underlying assets, hence avoiding the necessity for a bridge. The token is collateralized by BTC and is created on different blockchains. Token holders can exchange their tokens for native BTC by burning them.
WBTC, the widely-used Bitcoin wrapper, is encountering difficulties as a result of heightened examination stemming from problems associated with BitGo and TRON inventor Justin Sun.
BitGo revealed its intention to relinquish management of WBTC to a collaborative enterprise between BiT Global and Sun, causing apprehension within the community. As a consequence, the lending protocol Sky implemented a restriction on new users from borrowing against WBTC, resulting in a decrease in demand for the asset.
According to Dune Analytics statistics, the supply of WBTC declined by more than 1,000 tokens last month, making it the third-largest monthly decrease this year.
Rival companies, such as Coinbase, are aiming to disrupt BitGo’s dominant position in the market. The DeFi protocol Threshold has suggested consolidating its BTC “wrapper” token, tBTC, with WBTC in order to preserve the more widely accepted BTC commodity.
