Whale Accumulates WBTC Despite Controversy Surrounding the Token

• A whale accumulated over $118 million of WBTC in the last week.
• This comes when many are worried about WBTC’s growing centralization.

A whale has accumulated significant amounts of Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) over the past week from the Binance exchange, amounting to about $118 million. Within 24 hours, on August 20, the wallet added 347 WBTC tokens worth $16 million.

Blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain took to X to make the occurrence known. “A whale accumulated 347 $WBTC ($16M) again 7 hours ago!” The WBTC stash it holds came at an average price of $58,853.

Source: Lookonchain

Not Everyone Feels the Same Way About WBTC

Some may question the whale’s actions, considering WBTC undergoes turbulent times in some crypto circles, while others plan on moving away from it as well. Recently, Block Analitica (BA) introduced a proposal to MakerDAO to end its usage of WBTC as collateral to issue stablecoin positions and close all existing positions opened by using WBTC. It was brought on August 10, and the DAO voted on it on August 16, with the majority of its members in agreement with the proposal.

Aave could be next. Reports surfaced saying the DeFi platform also plans to cut ties with WBTC and move to another wrapped Bitcoin token, the Threshold Network’s TBTC.

As protocols line up to move away from their WBTC reliance, one can wonder why such is the case. It stemmed from BitGo, the WBTC issuer, moving WBTC operations under a new umbrella, a joint venture between BitGo and BiTGlobal, a custodian operating from Hong Kong. The Hong Kong-based entity is also partly owned by Justin Sun and the Tron ecosystem. Many have been skeptical of the centralization bleeding into WBTC.

As they voiced their concerns through these proposals and social media, it looks like Coinbase heard them and capitalized on the situation to introduce its own wrapped Bitcoin token on the Base blockchain. The cbBTC token is “Coming soon,” according to Coinbase.