21.co, the guardian firm of asset administration agency 21Shares, has built-in Chainlink Proof of Reserve on the Ethereum and Solana mainnet to bolster transparency of its wrapped Bitcoin product, 21BTC, in response to a Sept. 23 assertion.
The corporate will use Chainlink’s Proof of Reserve by its digital asset platform, Onyx, to automate real-time reserve verification to make sure safe minting of 21BTC.
The agency mentioned the mixing will immediately lead to decentralized oversight and transparency, which can profit customers and enhance confidence within the token. Customers will have the ability to independently confirm asset collateralization in actual time.
21BTC was first launched on Solana in Might and afterward Ethereum in September. It’s a absolutely backed token with 1:1 Bitcoin reserves held in chilly storage.
Johann Eid, Chief Enterprise Officer at Chainlink Labs, mentioned:
“Proof of Reserve’s function in enabling a safe minting operate is a key step to making a dependable framework that enables for the tokenization of trillions of {dollars} in worth.”
Coinbase rival’s challenges
Whereas 21.co has centered on bettering transparency for 21BTC, Coinbase’s wrapped Bitcoin (cbBTC) continues to face scrutiny.
On Sept. 23, 0xngmi, the founding father of DeFillama, criticized Coinbase’s cbBTC’s lack of transparency. He mentioned:
“Virtually each single bridge (together with WBTC) offers a Proof of Reserves so you’ll be able to examine that the issued cash are backed. However Coinbase doesn’t, cbBTC is approach beneath the usual when it comes to transparency.”
This comes as Coinbase’s Chief Authorized Officer, Paul Grewal, additionally needed to deal with considerations about cbBTC’s phrases of service. Some X customers had raised alarms that the alternate could not absolutely reimburse misplaced Bitcoin in circumstances of malicious exercise or unexpected occasions.
Nonetheless, Grewal clarified that Coinbase’s legal responsibility solely covers the Bitcoin misplaced. It doesn’t lengthen to losses from trades or leveraged positions. He acknowledged:
“It’s a limitation on legal responsibility that’s fairly fundamental: we aren’t answerable for greater than the BTC we lose. This language additionally makes clear the custodial relationship.”
Regardless of these considerations, cbBTC has gained traction, with almost 3,000 tokens circulating inside two weeks of its launch. It has shortly turn out to be the third-largest wrapped Bitcoin token, with a market capitalization of round $170 billion and a buying and selling quantity that has surpassed $1 billion within the final 24 hours, in response to Dune Analytics knowledge.
