We’re pleased to share that WBTC (Wrapped Bitcoin) is now live on Ethereum. For those who are not familiar with the initiative, WBTC is an ERC20 token fully backed by real BTC and stored by regulated custodians.
Together with Bitgo and Republic, we first announced the initiative in October last year, and it is now supported by more than 25 of the most important projects in the decentralized finance space.
Kyber’s Role
Kyber will be supporting WBTC as a launch partner in 3 main roles — as a founding merchant/liquidity provider, a DAO member, and by listing WBTC on Kyber Network, allowing it to be used in a wide range of swap services, wallets, websites, and DApps.
Merchant and Liquidity provision
As a launch merchant, we have worked with BitGo to procure an initial amount of WBTC, ensuring that users who wish to acquire WBTC at launch can do so easily. As such, WBTC is now available on KyberSwap to be exchanged with ETH, as well as any supported ERC-20 token.
Facilitating Usage Across DApps and Wallets
WBTC will be utilizable across all applications which have integrated Kyber’s liquidity protocol for decentralized token swaps.
1. End User Token Swaps: Anyone can swap an ERC20 token for WBTC and vice versa in popular wallets, third party websites, and mobile apps that are integrated with Kyber, such as MyEtherWallet, imToken, Enjin Wallet, and CoinGecko.
2. Exchanges and Trading: Traders and exchanges leveraging on Kyber for liquidity will be able to trade WBTC for trading and arbitrage opportunities with Bitcoin.
3. Payments For NFT and Commerce: WBTC can now be used as payment for goods, services, and NFTs (Non-fungible tokens e.g. Etheremon) on Kyber-integrated platforms, including Etheremon, Hodlmoon, EDCON, and ETHCC.
4. Decentralized Finance: Financial DApps that have integrated Kyber such as Betoken, bZx and Set Protocol are using WBTC for portfolio rebalancing, liquidation, and other financial cases. Their users will be able to include WBTC in their portfolio and asset classes.
DAO member
As a WBTC DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) member, Kyber will be helping to decide on the addition and removal of merchants and custodians. This will be an open process controlled by a multi-signature contract. Keys to the multi-sig contract will be held by Kyber and other institutions that are part of the WBTC DAO.
Other WBTC Partners at Launch
Apart from Kyber, there are 25 other partners participating in the launch, all of whom are playing important roles in driving governance, liquidity and adoption for WBTC.
Various decentralized and centralized exchanges such as AirSwap and ETHFinex have also procured WBTC inventory to support liquidity for the token with the live supply of WBTC observable on the WBTC dashboard. There are also 7 other merchants coming live in the coming months who will be working with BitGo to facilitate conversion between WBTC and BTC: AirSwap, Dharma, ETHfinex, GOPAX, Prycto, Republic Protocol, and Set Protocol.
Besides DApps that have integrated with Kyber, WBTC will also have immediate usage in other financial DApps, such as how Compound will create a liquid interest rate market on WBTC, Dharma enabling users to borrow and lend WBTC, and dYdX supporting a leveraged long WBTC token and a short WBTC token.
WBTC data is available on the main website dashboard, as well as top aggregator sites such as CoinGecko, allowing people to easily track important token information. The proof of reserve is on-chain, which shows the exact 1:1 between minted WBTC tokens and Bitcoin stored by the custodians.
In addition, the WBTC initiative will be both led and governed by the community from the start through a DAO. The DAO members will initially consist of AirSwap, BitGo, Blockfolio, Compound, DDEX / Hydro, Dharma, Gnosis, GOPAX, Kyber Network, Loopring Protocol, MakerDAO, OmiseGO, Prycto, Ren, Set Protocol, and TheOcean. Details on the DAO such as member addresses can be seen here, and the application to join is open to all.
A Transparent, Open, and Community-Led Initiative
WBTC is an ecosystem-wide initiative where many major projects work together to bring Bitcoin liquidity to Ethereum. At the heart of this initiative is transparency, openness, and how it’s community-driven, setting an open standard for the community to work together on a single cross-chain asset standard with no single owner.
Together with all our partners, Kyber is excited to see this initiative go live, and we’re always glad to have more builders join the collaboration. Here are some ways to get involved:
- Help spread the word on this initiative by sharing to all social media channels, such as Twitter, reddit, Telegram
- Contact [email protected] or reach out to any of the projects involved to know more.
- Or just join our Kyber developer Telegram to either ask about the initiative or how you can build with Kyber.
We look forward to working with the entire ecosystem to drive the WBTC initiative forward, whether it is around adding support for more coins, expanding adoption for the initiative, improving the standard, involving more partners, or increasing the decentralization and security of the token.
Join us!
Website: wbtc.network
Get WBTC: KyberSwap
Press Release: https://www.wbtc.network/assets/WBTC_Press_Release_Jan_2019.pdf
