Since the project launched a little over six months ago, Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) has roughly $5.9 million or 558 BTC locked into the system. At the rate WBTC’s token contract is climbing, the project is close to surpassing the Lightning Network’s capacity in the near future.
Also read: The ”Wrapped Bitcoin” Project Has Now Officially Launched on Ethereum
Wrapped Bitcoin Contract Captures 558 BTC
In January, Bitgo, Kyber Network, and Ren (formerly Republic Protocol) revealed the creation of a new ERC20 token project called Wrapped Bitcoin, a token created on the Ethereum network that’s been gathering a bunch of growth recently. Essentially WBTC is an ERC20 token backed by bitcoin core (BTC) at a 1:1 ratio. The creators of WBTC explained during the token’s launch that the system was designed to bring more liquidity into the crypto ecosystem. At the moment, the token contract’s locked BTC has climbed significantly in value, gathering 558 BTC with roughly $5.9 million in value. The numbers have been impressive since the project started in January and reached a million dollars by the first week of May. Since April 16, the amount of BTC added to the WBTC contract has grown by 272%.
In comparison to the Lightning Network’s growth, the WBTC contract is growing much faster and they both provide similar functionality. Since February 2018, the Lightning Network capacity has held around 5.5 BTC or roughly $46,000 and it’s taken more than a year to climb past $10 million and reached an all-time high of $12 million last month. At the time of writing, the Lighting Network’s current capacity is $9.5 million or 911
