Coinbase Expands cbBTC to Solana, Boosting DeFi Options for Bitcoin Holders

Coinbase has announced the expansion of its wrapped Bitcoin product, cbBTC, to the Solana blockchain. Originally launched in September, cbBTC was initially available only on Ethereum and Coinbase’s native Layer 2 Base blockchain.

Now on Solana, it will exist as a Solana Program Library (SPL) token, which can represent both fungible and non-fungible assets.

Coinbase’s cbBTC Debuts on Solana

Upon launch, cbBTC will be integrated into a range of prominent Solana DeFi platforms, including Jupiter Exchange, Meteora, Kamino Finance, Jito, Phoenix, Drift Protocol, Raydium, Orca, Save Finance (formerly Solend), Manifest, and Loopscale Labs.

This move marks Coinbase’s effort to broaden the reach of cbBTC beyond the Ethereum ecosystem. Coinbase had previously stated,

“Coinbase is pioneering a new era for DeFi with cbBTC – a trusted and reputable wrapped version of Bitcoin. cbBTC is backed 1:1 by BTC held in custody by Coinbase – which has a 10+ year record of securely custodying billions in Bitcoin for institutions and customers across the globe. Greater transparency with proof of reserves has been part of our roadmap since the conception of cbBTC and will follow.”

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Additionally, in a separate announcement, Coinbase also revealed that cbBTC’s market capitalization hit a $1 billion milestone in just nine weeks after its launch.

Proliferation of Wrapped Bitcoin Tokens

The market for wrapped Bitcoin tokens is expanding as more providers enter the scene. The main objective of these tokens is to enable BTC holders to engage with other networks and DeFi applications outside of Bitcoin without liquidating their holdings. Backed 1:1 with Bitcoin, wrapped BTC tokens are largely on Ethereum.

The first, WBTC, was launched in 2019 by BitGo and remains the largest, with a supply of roughly 150,000 and a market cap of $11,18 billion. Later entries in 2020 included HBTC from HTX, tBTC by Threshold Network, and renBTC by Ren Protocol.

In addition to Coinbase, Kraken has also launched its own wrapped Bitcoin token, named kBTC this year. The token was made available on both Ethereum and OP Mainnet.