Odaily Frontline | Bitcoin locked on Ethereum is worth more than $800 million, up 37% so far this month

This article comes fromDecrypt, original author: Alexander Behrens

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Summary:

This article comes from

, original author: Alexander Behrens

Odaily Translator |

secondary title

Summary:

- Bitcoin transferred to the Ethereum blockchain is now worth more than $800 million, up 37% so far this month;

- Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) and renBTC are still the most popular transfer protocols, but Huobi’s HBTC has also seen growth recently;

- This rudimentary cross-chain cryptocurrency is centralized in some form.

Since the crypto market experienced a correction in early September, nearly 80,000 bitcoins have been transferred to the Ethereum blockchain as of press time as DeFi protocols re-attract value back to their liquidity pools.

Data from Dune Analytics shows that the amount of BTC transferred to the ethereum blockchain has grown by nearly 37% so far this month, even as the prices of both bitcoin and ethereum have fallen since Sept. 1.

The increase in Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) and other cross-chain Bitcoin locks has pushed its total value from less than $600 million earlier this month to more than $800 million — equivalent to more than 2% of the entire Ethereum market cap.

This trend is a signal that despite the volatility of digital asset prices, the attractiveness of DeFi returns remains huge even for BTC holders.

Cross-chain transfer protocols such as WBTC and renBTC use trusted third-party custodians or smart contract-controlled wallets to hold one digital asset (in this case, Bitcoin) while keeping it on another blockchain (such as Ethereum). Create replica tokens on The copied assets (sometimes called "wrapped tokens") are pegged to the value of the original token.

The most popular BTC-ETH cross-chain project is Wrapped Bitcoin, which accounts for more than 66% of all cross-chain BTCs, and as of press time, the protocol has locked nearly 53,000 bitcoins. The second most popular transfer protocol, RenBTC, is also growing steadily, holding around 22% of the Bitcoin transfer market.

Another notable performer was Huobi’s HBTC, which became the third most popular BTC transfer solution with over 6% market share. The total HBTC supply has increased by more than 570% since early August, when it was under 1,000 tokens, to 4,800 tokens at press time.

In addition, Cointelegraph reported on September 11 that according to DeFi Pulse statistics, the number of bitcoins locked on the Ethereum chain had reached 67,038 (worth about $694 million) on September 2, and has now risen to a record high of 87,752 ( valued at approximately US$904 million), an increase of 30.9%. This is equivalent to 20 times the amount of locked bitcoins in the Lightning Network. More than 50% (51,295 BTC) of this was WBTC, accounting for 63% (13,000 WBTC) of the increase in Bitcoin-pegged coins since September 2. Additionally, RenVM has locked 17,630 bitcoins, an increase of 2,500 since the beginning of the month.

In contrast, the Bitcoin Lightning Network accounts for only 1.2% (1061) of the total number of Bitcoins locked in DeFi. As of September, the number of bitcoins locked on the Lightning Network has increased by only 4 coins, which is less than 0.02% of the total increase of bitcoins. Since the beginning of the year, a total of 198 bitcoins have been added to the Lightning Network, an increase of 23%. In contrast, WBTC has newly locked 50,000 bitcoins this year, an increase of more than 8600%.

As the amount of Bitcoin transferred to Ethereum has increased, there have also been concerns about centralization issues and the role of third parties in the three major transfer solutions (WBTC, RenBTC, and HBTC).