Sun Yuchen: Participating in WBTC is a strategic move aimed at promoting decentralization in the industry
WBTC (Wrapped BTC), also known as Wrapped Bitcoin, is an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain issued by BitGo, backed 1:1 by Bitcoin.Recently, the involvement of TRON founder Justin Sun in WBTC has attracted widespread attention in the industry. Justin Sun stated on social media that his personal participation in WBTC is purely strategic, aiming to promote projects dedicated to decentralization, secure protocols, and safety.
He also pointed out that he does not control the private keys of the WBTC reserves and cannot move any BTC reserves. Regarding the importance of WBTC, Justin Sun believes it is a crucial component of the DeFi ecosystem and will ensure its continued relevance.
WBTC (Wrapped BTC), also known as Wrapped Bitcoin, is an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain issued by BitGo, backed 1:1 by Bitcoin. Since its launch in January 2019, WBTC has become one of the largest Bitcoin DeFi applications. Currently, there are 74 partners supporting WBTC, including Ethereum, TRON, Base, Kava, and Osmosis.
As the custodian of WBTC, BitGo has served as its custodian since its establishment in 2019, responsible for safeguarding all underlying Bitcoin and the private keys of the smart contracts that mint WBTC tokens. BitGo, as the world's largest independent digital asset custodian, has a high reputation in the industry, with shareholders including well-known institutions like Goldman Sachs.
On August 9, BitGo tweeted that through a unique partnership and joint venture with BiT Global, its WBTC business will transition to the world's first cross-jurisdictional and cross-institutional custody. This upgrade will take place within 60 days without interrupting or disrupting services. Subsequently, it disclosed related partners on its official website, mentioning Justin Sun among its individual collaborators, sparking heated discussions in the crypto community.
Justin Sun stated that there have been no changes to WBTC compared to before. Audits are conducted in real-time, and the minting process is entirely managed by custodians Bitglobal and BitGo according to the same procedures as before. According to media reports, in 2017, Justin Sun founded the public chain platform TRON, dedicated to re-decentralizing the internet. By the end of 2021, TRON, one of the top three public chain platforms globally, completed full decentralization and became a decentralized organization (DAO) for community governance. Currently, TRON DAO is also the largest decentralized organization in the world.
BitGo CEO Mike Belshe responded to the discussions sparked by the tweet, stating, "BiT Global, as a licensed custody platform, has a complete team operation system to manage the custodial assets through a multi-signature mechanism. They must also comply with regulatory requirements and properly safeguard client assets without arbitrarily transferring funds."
Previously, a "so-called proposal by MakerDao to delist WBTC" among crypto users was confirmed to be FUD caused by a few community members who were unclear about the WBTC operational mechanism, which Mike Belshe also refuted.
Jupiter co-founder Meow commented on social media, saying, "I don't intend to make any judgments about BitGo; they have indeed been an excellent custodian so far, and I believe they have the best intentions."
