Coinbase has filed its response to BiT Global’s lawsuit over the delisting of Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). 

Justin Sun-advised BiT Global’s original lawsuit centered around Coinbase’s decision to delist WBTC. The custody provider alleged that this was an unfair assault on its reputation that could potentially lead to it losing “more than $1 billion in its market valuation.”

It additionally alleges that Coinbase was attempting to monopolize the tokenized bitcoin (BTC) space to favor its own product, Coinbase Wrapped Bitcoin (cbBTC).

BiT Global is seeking an order that would obligate Coinbase to relist WBTC.

Read more: Justin Sun-advised HTX has redeemed 7,300 WBTC it did not disclose

In its response to the lawsuit, Coinbase took aim at Sun. It pointed out that the decision to delist WBTC was centered around a belief that there was an “unacceptable risk that control of wBTC would fall into the hands of Justin Sun.” 

Coinbase’s filing also noted that BiT Global “refused to answer” questions “about who ultimately owned and controlled BiT.”

Furthermore, the exchange noted that it makes up “less than 1% of transactions involving wBTC,” suggesting BiT may have been exaggerating the potential harm to its business from this delisting.

Read more: Justin Sun has 99 problems and WBTC is two of them 

The filing also challenges the reputational harms suggested by BiT Global, pointing out that “long before Coinbase took any action,” the market already started to react to the change in WBTC. According to Coinbase, this means “any diminished trust in wBTC was caused by its association with Mr. Sun — not by Coinbase.”

Exhibits attached to the filings and declarations also directly asked BiT Global about Sun’s other tokenized BTC project, which is offered by Poloniex and for which he refuses to confirm collateral. 

BiT wasn’t able to verify the collateral of this other product.

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The post Coinbase takes aim at Justin Sun in WBTC lawsuit response appeared first on Protos.

Justin Sun-affiliated BiT Global has filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of California against Coinbase that alleges a variety of infractions centered around the exchange’s decision to delist Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). 

When Coinbase decided to delist WBTC, it claimed that as of its “most recent review,” WBTC no longer met its listing requirements.

This led Sun to launch a series of hypocritical complaints at the exchange, including implying that Sun-owned Poloniex has deep issues that prevent it from completing a proof-of-reserves process.

Read more: Justin Sun reveals Poloniex issues prevent proof of reserves 

BiT Global’s lawsuit claims that it risks suffering losses of “more than $1 billion in its market valuation” due to the assaults on its reputation from Coinbase. Furthermore, it tries to claim that Coinbase is motivated by a desire to monopolize the tokenized BTC space with its token, cbBTC.

It’s important to note that recently, Sun-advised HTX has been the largest redeemer of WBTC and the market capitalization of WBTC has grown more than its competitors. One of the HTX redemptions is even described in the lawsuit as evidence that Coinbase had hurt BiT Global, which is strange considering Sun advises both BiT Global and HTX. 

The lawsuit also attempts to use Coinbase’s other listing decisions, including PEPE and DOGWIFHAT, to claim that “Coinbase has virtually no standards for what can be listed.”

Strangely, the lawsuit claims that “bitcoin’s design was locked into place,” despite the Taproot soft fork that extended bitcoin’s functionality after the 2018 period described in the lawsuit. 

The lawsuit hopes to force Coinbase to once again list WBTC, as well as pay damages based on the hypothetical harm to BiT Global’s market valuation. 

A Coinbase spokesperson told Protos, “Coinbase is committed to maintaining the high integrity of our listing standards, and we regularly evaluate assets listed on our platform. Should an asset fail to meet those standards, it is delisted.”

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The post Coinbase sued over WBTC delisting by Justin Sun-affiliated BiT Global appeared first on Protos.

On August 9, BitGo announced that it was transitioning Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) to a new “strategic partnership between BitGo, Justin Sun, and the Tron Ecosystem.”

The announcement continued that this partner would would “continue to provide real-time proof-of-reserves.”

Despite specifically referencing the Tron ecosystem and promising that real-time proof-of-reserves would also continue, WBTC on TRON, as well as WETH on TRON, have been removed from the WBTC dashboard, meaning the proof-of-reserves for this token is no longer available.

The dashboard no longer includes WBTC on Tron but still features the versions on Ethereum, Base, Kava, and Osmosis.

An on-chain review of WBTC on Tron doesn’t show any substantial changes in the supply recently. However, it’s not currently possible to verify the BTC that is meant to collateralize these tokens.

Read more: Coinbase to delist WBTC months after Justin Sun controversy

These changes to WBTC come quick on the heels of Sun-advised HTX redeeming thousands of WBTC it hadn’t previously disclosed.

It’s not clear why WBTC made this change, especially as it continues to advertise on its homepage that it’s “Completely transparent. 100% verifiable.”

This change to not disclosing its backing brings WBTC on Tron in line with Sun-owned Poloniex’s BTC on Tron product. This product is approximately 1,000 times larger than WBTC on Tron, makes up a massive portion of all BTC on HTX, and doesn’t disclose where the backing is held.

Protos has reached out to BitGo, BiT Global, WBTC, and Justin Sun but none responded immediately to questions about why these products were removed from the website.

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The post Wrapped Bitcoin hides bitcoins for WBTC on Tron appeared first on Protos.

HTX, the Justin Sun-advised crypto exchange, has been rapidly redeeming massive quantities of wrapped bitcoin (WBTC). This started on November 24 with HTX redeeming approximately 5,182 bitcoins and has continued with the additional redemption of 2,166 bitcoins on December 1.

Both of these transactions were unusual to observe, given that WBTC has no 24-hour volume on HTX. 

Additionally, there is no WBTC included in the proof-of-reserves for HTX. 

Furthermore, neither of the two bitcoin addresses that these redemptions largely ended up in, 1Fgpaz4kXyz35WKMGk2Yo19mR9pk3KC8zx and 1Apv2EuoHyCpKsxdFEPv5GSddqDMt3bTN6, are included in the proof-of-reserves.

Read more: Justin Sun’s USDD removes 12,000 BTC without DAO approval

Furthermore, the total amount redeemed, approximately 7,300 bitcoin, would represent approximately one-third of all bitcoin included in the HTX Proof-of-Reserves.

Despite these apparent issues with these redemptions, they have been processed quickly by WBTC, each in about five hours. Other WBTC users sometimes need to wait nearly two weeks for their redemptions to process.

This Sun-advised exchange redeeming assets it hadn’t previously disclosed may reignite the controversy around Sun’s involvement in the custody of WBTC. Especially as he has launched hypocritical criticisms at competitors. 

Sun, for his part, has been cozying up to the United States president-elect, purchasing a massive stake in World Liberty Financial, the project endorsed by the sexual predator. Sun is also currently the target of a Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit that alleges he engaged in wash-trading, price-manipulation, and hired celebrities without disclosure to sell securities he was selling without registration.

Protos reached out to HTX to clarify these issues, but at press, it had not responded. 

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The post Justin Sun-advised HTX has redeemed 7,300 WBTC it did not disclose appeared first on Protos.

HTX, the crypto exchange advised by controversial figure Justin Sun, recently redeemed 5,182 wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) worth approximately $500 million, according to the official WBTC dashboard.

This comes just over three months after Sun entered into a new joint venture with BiT Global and BitGo to manage the custody of bitcoin for WBTC.

On-chain data for WBTC suggests this is the sixth-largest redemption of WBTC of all time and is the largest redemption in the last 635 days.

Threshold Network delegate ‘mrsthreshold.eth.limo’ highlighted that this large redemption was processed in only a few hours, whereas other recent smaller redemptions often seemed to take several days to process.

However, despite that delayed CoinList redemption, other entities have been able to redeem more quickly, including a redemption today by Tokka Labs, a Wintermute burn yesterday, and a couple of earlier burns this month. However, last month Wintermute did have to wait 12 days for a small mint.

Protos reached out to WBTC to determine why the CoinList redemption and Wintermute mint took longer to complete but had not received a response by press time.

This HTX address appears to have been receiving significant quantities of WBTC from Binance recently, including an additional 590 bitcoin after this redemption. 

Read more: WBTC supply contracts this month following Justin Sun custody drama

Taylor Monahan also highlighted that HTX appeared to have changed its deposit address shortly before these redemptions.

HTX and WBTC

This redemption of WBTC by HTX is strange because it’s not a commonly traded asset on the exchange, with 0 volume over the last 24 hours. 

Furthermore, the HTX proof-of-reserves doesn’t include any WBTC at all. 

Additionally, the address that this redemption came from, 0xbE6d2444a717767544a8b0Ba77833AA6519D81cD, is not included in the HTX proof-of-reserves. Nor is 1Fgpaz4kXyz35WKMGk2Yo19mR9pk3KC8zx where the majority of these redeemed bitcoins ended up. 

Furthermore, the 5,182 bitcoins would represent more than one-quarter of all user bitcoins on HTX.

Protos reached out to HTX to determine why it had so much WBTC that was not included in the proof-of-reserves, but at press, it hadn’t responded. 

Justin Sun’s bitcoin problems

This redemption highlights some of the bitcoin-related problems that Sun has recently been struggling with. 

Read more: Coinbase to delist WBTC months after Justin Sun controversy

These include the fact that nearly half of all ‘bitcoin’ held at HTX is actually Bitcoin-on-Tron offered by Sun-owned Poloniex. This tokenized form of bitcoin doesn’t disclose where it custodies the bitcoins, provides no proof-of-reserves, and is far larger than WBTC on Tron. 

Additionally, Sun-linked pseudo-algorithmic stablecoin USDD recently removed 12,000 bitcoins from its reserves without any approval from the so-called decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that’s supposed to govern the stablecoin. 

Furthermore, the launch of Coinbase’s tokenized bitcoin competitor Coinbase Wrapped Bitcoin (cbBTC) has led Sun to launch hypocritical attacks on this new competitor. Coinbase in turn has decided to delist WBTC. 

These various discrepancies highlight Sun’s willingness to freely move assets between entities he officially or unofficially controls. 

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The post Justin Sun’s HTX redeems $500M in WBTC it wasn’t supposed to have appeared first on Protos.

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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The post Coinbase to delist WBTC months after Justin Sun controversy appeared first on Protos.

In early August, a little over two months ago, BitGo announced that it was entering a new joint venture with Justin Sun and BiT Global, a Hong Kong-based custodian, to manage custody for Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC).

Sun’s involvement was controversial, leading some DeFi projects to briefly consider whether WBTC would remain safe going forward. The most high-profile of these, MakerDAO, did eventually decide it was still safe to include WBTC.

This period of time even included a less than fully viable proposal for competitor Threshold Network to acquire WBTC. 

Additionally, both Coinbase and Kraken have launched competitors to WBTC following BitGo’s announcement.

Read more: How involved is Justin Sun with WBTC’s new custodian BiT Global?

Since then, Coinbase’s version, Coinbase Wrapped Bitcoin (cbBTC), has seen the most rapid growth among the four charted competitors, vastly outstripping both Kraken Wrapped Bitcoin (kBTC) and Threshold Network Bitcoin (tBTC).

Despite the originally controversial change and an initial surge, burn requests have slowed for WBTC, and the appreciation in bitcoin’s price has allowed its market capitalization to grow more substantially than the growth of its competitors tBTC, kBTC, and cbBTC combined.

Additionally, BitGo has announced that two of the three keys will remain in its control, split between BitGo Singapore and BitGo Inc., with only a single key under the control of Sun-affiliated BiT Global.

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The post CHART: The growth of WBTC competitors appeared first on Protos.

Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC), a popular ERC-20 wrapped version of bitcoin that also has versions on other chains, has seen its supply contract slightly since Justin Sun’s involvement was announced.

A Dune analytics dashboard created by 21.co that tracks the supply of WBTC on Ethereum suggests that the supply of WBTC on Ethereum has contracted by 3.7% over the last month.

The largest burns in the last month seem to have come from Coinlist, FalconX, and Abra.

Justin Sun’s role

WBTC has attracted significantly greater attention since it announced that it would be transitioning the custody of bitcoin for the token from BitGo to a joint venture between BitGo, BiT Global, and Sun.

BiT Global directors include Yiying Jiang, an executive who has previously worked with Sun on ventures related to BitTorrent, Poloniex, Huobi, TRON, and TrueUSD.

This decision initially led MakerDAO to limit the ability for new Dai, its native token, to be issued by borrowing against WBTC, though this decision was subsequently reversed. 

Read more: Launch of cbBTC, WBTC competitor, sparks Justin Sun hypocrisy

New competitors

Other firms have taken advantage of this stumble to promote alternative products or changes to existing products.

Threshold Network, which is behind tBTC, at one point, proposed a merger with WBTC — something that was unlikely to ever occur. 

Coinbase launched Coinbase Wrapped BTC (cbBTC), a coin that attracted the ire of Sun for its lack of proof of reserves.

Kraken has taken the opportunity to launch its own wrapped Bitcoin token, kBTC, however, none of these tokens have yet seen significant adoption compared to WBTC.

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The post WBTC supply contracts this month following Justin Sun custody drama appeared first on Protos.

BitGo’s August 9 announcement that it was partnering with Justin Sun and BitGlobal for wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) has stoked controversy across the ecosystem and drawn greater attention to Sun’s other projects.

Following the announcement, MakerDAO decided to disable new borrows against WBTC and Coinbase announced its own wrapped bitcoin product, cbBTC — a move that has drawn the ire of Sun.

He has accused cbBTC of operating without proof-of-reserves or audits, going as far as to claim that exchanges that haven’t yet completed a proof-of-reserves are “unable to meet the requirements.”

Unfortunately for him, Poloniex, an exchange owned by Sun that operates a wrapped bitcoin product far larger than cbBTC, doesn’t have a proof-of-reserves either.

HTX, a Sun-advised exchange, relies extensively on this product, making up more than half of the ‘bitcoin’ this exchange holds.

Read more: Justin Sun reveals Poloniex issues prevent proof of reserves

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The post VIDEO: Unpacking Justin Sun’s messy WBTC deal with BitGo appeared first on Protos.

Coinbase has decided to take advantage recent controversies surrounding WBTC’s decision to involve Justin Sun to launch its own wrapped bitcoin project, Coinbase Wrapped BTC (cbBTC).

This new token is offered on both Ethereum and Coinbase’s own Base network. Coinbase will treat it as equivalent to normal BTC in its orderbooks, and Coinbase users can obtain cbBTC by withdrawing Bitcoin on either Ethereum or Base, and it will be automatically converted. 

Coinbase’s website says that this asset can already be used across the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem, including Aerodrome, Curve, Aave, Compound, Spark, and more. 

CoinMarketCap indicates that the current marketcap for this token is approximately $100 million. 

cbBTC, WBTC, and Bitcoin-on-Tron

Read more: MakerDAO disables WBTC borrows after Justin Sun involvement revealed 

cbBTC competitor WBTC has attracted additional scrutiny since announcing that Sun and a custodian he advises, BiT Global, were getting involved with the project.

This announcement initially led some DeFi projects, including Maker, to re-consider how WBTC was treated in the protocol, centering around fears of Sun’s reliability.

Sun has already taken to X to share his disappointment with this new competitor, complaining that cbBTC “lacks Proof of Reserve, no audits, and can freeze anyone’s balance anytime. Essentially, it’s just ‘trust me.’ Any U.S. government subpoena could seize all your BTC. There’s no better representation of central bank Bitcoin than this. It’s a dark day for BTC.”

This is a somewhat ironic stance for Sun to take, considering the Bitcoin on Tron product offered by Poloniex, a cryptocurrency exchange he owns.

Sun had previously promised that Poloniex would have a ‘proof-of-reserves’ but has failed to provide that in the almost two years since that promise was made. 

Additionally, Poloniex offers its own version of wrapped bitcoin, commonly described as ‘Bitcoin-on-Tron’, which is substantially larger than WBTC on Tron. Protos has previously reached out to Poloniex to determine where the bitcoins for this product are held, and Poloniex was unwilling to disclose that information.

Despite this troubling lack of disclosure, Sun-advised HTX (formerly Huobi) holds more than half of its current bitcoin reserves in this Poloniex-offered product.

Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel. Quotes in bold are our emphasis.

The post Launch of cbBTC, WBTC competitor, sparks Justin Sun hypocrisy appeared first on Protos.