During a recent announcement, the country director for Coinbase in Singapore, Hassan Ahmed, disclosed plans to launch the new “cbBTC”—a wrapped Bitcoin asset—on the Solana (SOL) blockchain at the upcoming Breakpoint 2024 event.

Although no specific launch date was mentioned, Ahmed shared with the audience:

“We’ve recently launched cbBTC on Base, and we’re excited to bring native cbBTC to Solana, which our users greatly appreciate.”

This announcement received enthusiastic applause from attendees at the Solana-centric conference, highlighting interest in the collateralized asset.

Introduction of cbBTC by Coinbase

On September 12, Coinbase announced the rollout of cbBTC for clients located in Singapore, Australia, the UK, and all US states except New York.

Initially launched on the Ethereum (ETH) and Base networks, cbBTC is 1:1 backed by Bitcoin held in custody by the exchange. Importantly, there are no separate order books or trading pairs associated with cbBTC on Coinbase.

According to data from CryptoQuant, cbBTC rapidly rose to become the third most prominent wrapped Bitcoin product within its first week, outperforming older competitors such as Huobi BTC (HBTC) and renBTC (RENBTC), which have been established since 2020.

Sky Community Proposes cbBTC as Alternative to WBTC

In its brief time in the market, cbBTC has captured the attention of significant figures in the cryptocurrency sector.

On the launch date, the team behind the Sky lending and borrowing platform, previously known as Maker, expressed intentions to remove Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) as a collateral asset due to concerns about its association with Tron (TRX) founder Justin Sun.

The Sky community subsequently proposed various alternatives to WBTC, including Coinbase’s cbBTC. On September 19, the community voted overwhelmingly—over 88% in favor—to eliminate WBTC from their ecosystem, demonstrating a clear preference for alternative options.