Coinbase to delist WBTC months after Justin Sun controversy
Coinbase has announced that it intends to delist Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), claiming that as of its “most recent review,” it no longer meets the listing requirements for the exchange. This will go into effect on December 19.
This comes after Coinbase launched its own competitor to this token, Coinbase Wrapped Bitcoin (cbBTC), a token that has drawn the ire of Justin Sun, who is now involved in the custody of WBTC.
Justin Sun and WBTC
The tokenized bitcoin space has seen great upheaval since August when BitGo announced that it was forming a new joint venture with Justin Sun and BiT Global to manage the custody of WBTC.
Read more: CHART: The growth of WBTC competitors
Sun’s involvement has provoked a great deal of consternation across the industry and led Coinbase and Kraken to launch tokenized competitors. It has also prompted an ill-fated proposal from Threshold Network to acquire the token.
The launch of these competitors has also led Sun to criticize cbBTC, claiming that Coinbase’s failure to complete a proof of reserves process is evidence that the exchange is “unable to meet the requirements.” It is important to note that Sun-owned Poloniex has also never completed a proof-of-reserves process and operates a tokenized version of bitcoin on Tron that is far larger than cbBTC.
Additionally, this Poloniex bitcoin on Tron makes up over half of all bitcoin on Sun-advised HTX.
Now, Coinbase has decided that the changes to WBTC are significant enough that it no longer meets Coinbase’s standards. It’s important to highlight that many assets of dubious quality do meet Coinbase’s standards, including:
- Dogecoin
- Shiba Inu
- Pepe
- dogwifhat
This delisting seems likely to pour more fuel on the fires of the tokenized bitcoin space, especially the ongoing beef between Sun and Coinbase.
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