Coinbase will begin accepting inbound WBTC transfers to Coinbase Pro on Monday, October 19. Trading will start on or after 9AM Pacific Time (PT) on Tuesday, 20 October, if conditions of liquidity are fulfilled.
Order Books Opening for WBTC
Trading on Coinbase’s WBTC-USD and WBTC-BTC order books will launch in the following stages: transfer-only, post-only, limit-only, and complete trading once an adequate supply of WBTC is deposited on the platform.
If the trading of WBTC does not meet Coinbase’s assessment for a safe and orderly market at some point, Coinbase may take a longer period of time before trading is fully allowed or suspend trade in compliance with Coinbase’s trading regulations.
When each stage of trading is completed, Coinbase will make an announcement on their Twitter page.
Intro to WBTC
Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) is an Ethereum token on the Ethereum blockchain which represents Bitcoin ( BTC). 1 Bitcoin can be transformed to 1 Wrapped Bitcoin by a WBTC affiliate, and vice-versa.
To allow Bitcoin holders to participate in decentralized finance (‘DeFi’) apps that are common on Ethereum, WBTC was developed. Through a “proof of reserve” system that verifies the 1:1 backup, Bitcoin is “wrapped” as WBTC.
WBTC is maintained by a community that now consists of over 30 members called the WBTC DAO. Initially, it was started by BitGo, Ren, and Kyber. As a result of WBTC’s 1:1 ratio with BTC, it increases the liquidity of the Ethereum network and allows more functionality on the Ethereum network.
Its technical implementation also paves way for standardizing the BTC to ERC20 format. WBTC utilizes an innovative “burning” function for redeeming Bitcoin for WBTC tokens.
The WBTC project has also turned out to be a simplification tool for exchanges, limiting overall operational costs by linking the BTC and Ethereum networks.
