According to data recorded on December 28, approximately 434,265.43 bitcoin-pegged or wrapped bitcoin tokens worth more than $21.3 billion are now in circulation across several blockchains. Ten different bitcoin-pegged projects currently exist, with Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) commanding a 59.66% dominance of all tokenized bitcoin in circulation.
Ethereum Leads Tokenized Bitcoin Supply
The tokenization trend accelerated in late 2018, and by July 2019, WBTC had already surpassed the Lightning Network in total value locked. Today, WBTC is the largest bitcoin-pegged token project, with 259,090 BTC circulating on the Ethereum network. Seven BTC-pegged projects operate on Ethereum, collectively holding 323,264 BTC in total value locked (TVL) — representing 74.43% of the aggregate tokenized bitcoin supply. The second-largest Ethereum-based project is HBTC with 39,884 BTC, followed by RENBTC (17,054), SBTC (4,203), IMBTC (1,317), PBTC (888), and TBTC (828).
Binance Smart Chain’s BTCB in Second Place
Another significant tokenized bitcoin protocol is BTCB, built on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). As of December 28, approximately 105,115.44 BTCB are in circulation, with a fully diluted market cap of around $5.52 billion and $43.6 million in daily trading volume. Prominent exchanges swapping BTCB include Hitbtc, Pancakeswap v2, Thorchain, and Pancakeswap v1.
Liquid and RSK: Smaller but Notable Players
Two additional tokenized bitcoin projects are operated by Blockstream and RSK. The RSK sidechain holds 2,522 RBTC in circulation, backed by 95 EH/s of Bitcoin hashpower, representing approximately $124 million in value. Blockstream’s federated sidechain Liquid has 3,363.99 LBTC in circulation, worth about $165.4 million. LBTC accounts for only 0.77% of the total tokenized bitcoin supply, while RBTC’s share is even smaller at 0.58%. At the current growth trajectory, the total tokenized bitcoin supply across all protocols is approaching half a million BTC, signaling increasing cross-chain utilization of bitcoin’s liquidity.