Justin Sun has 99 problems and WBTC is two of them
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BitGo announced on Friday that it’s transforming its wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) product into a new partnership with BiT Global (or maybe it’s BitGlobal. The company — formerly Bithumb — switches between the names on the English version of its website) and Justin Sun.
Having previously operated the product, BitGo will now be a “minority shareholder” in the new venture.
BitGo’s WBTC
WBTC is offered on several different chains, with the largest and most important being the assets on Ethereum. There are currently over 154,000 WBTC on Ethereum from this product, worth over $9 billion.
It is also offered on Base, Kava, Osmosis, and Tron, but those products are a tiny fraction of the size of the WBTC on Ethereum.
MakerDAO delegates have reacted to the news about the change by suggesting that the limits for WBTC as collateral be reduced.
Mike Belshe, the founder and CEO of BitGo, jumped in to the discussion but was unable to share BiT Global’s ultimate beneficial ownership, directors, and officers, but did note that “if BiT Global is fully compromised…the treasury could be at risk.”
Sun himself has taken to X (formerly Twitter) to calm fears, falsely claiming that the product is receiving audits, claiming that his involvement is “entirely strategic,” and further claiming that he does “not control the private keys to the WBTC reserves.”
As someone would expect for a ‘Wrapped’ product, BitGo currently publishes the addresses where it holds the bitcoins for this product, which Sun seems to falsely believe constitutes an audit.
Justin Sun’s other WBTC
Sun has previously involved himself with another WBTC product on Tron, which is far more popular.
The WBTC on Tron product currently offered by BitGo has less than 100 WBTC on Tron. This product is associated with the contract address TXpw8XeWYeTUd4quDskoUqeQPowRh4jY65.
This isn’t the WBTC that most people associate with Sun-related entities, though.
There is a separate WBTC on Tron product originally offered by Poloniex, a Sun-owned entity, and this is vastly more popular.
It has approximately 112,000 tokens, supposedly backed by bitcoin, and is associated with the contract address TN3W4H6rK2ce4vX9YnFQHwKENnHjoxb3m9. That is approximately 1,120 times the size of the WBTC on Tron product currently offered by BitGo.
This product also makes up the majority of the bitcoin currently held on Sun-advised HTX.
Read more: Justin Sun-advised HTX plays games with its reserves
Unlike the much smaller BitGo WBTC on Tron product, which discloses where the bitcoins backing it are held, neither HTX nor Poloniex have been willing to share where the much greater number of bitcoins for this product are held.
Sun’s previous history of running wrapped bitcoin products without transparency that are used wildly in the reserves of entities he advises raises numerous concerns about this transition.
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