Solana Welcomes $WBTC via Wormhole Bridge for DeFi Application

Solana innovators and users can now access Wrapped Bitcoin on the Layer-1 through Wormhole.

• This integration is one of many that Wormhole has facilitated, fueling diversity in the memecoin market.

Bitcoin has found a new home as Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) goes live on the Solana ecosystem, with Wormhole acting as a bridge. As noted in a series of X posts, the collaboration opens up possibilities for the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) applications built on Solana.

WBTC Via Wormhole Extends Functionality to Solana

According to a prior report by Crypto News Flash, WBTC previously functioned as an ERC-20 token, allowing users to leverage its functionality within the Ethereum blockchain. With Wormhole’s interoperability bridge, WBTC’s reach extends to Solana’s thriving DeFi ecosystem.

ICYMI $WBTC is multichain and live on @Solana, made possible by Wormhole.

Bringing $WBTC to Solana means it can be used across Solana’s DeFi ecosystem, including on @DriftProtocol, @KaminoFinance, and @orca_so.

Take a closer look ⬇️🧵 pic.twitter.com/UURP4Uk8wd

— Wormhole (@wormhole) June 24, 2024

This means WBTC can be seamlessly integrated into popular Solana DeFi protocols like Drift Protocol, Kamino Finance, and Orca, further amplifying their offerings.

Wormhole acts as the invisible gateway between Ethereum and Solana, facilitating the smooth transfer of WBTC. Through Portal, Wormhole’s token bridge, the original WBTC tokens are secured in a smart contract while a corresponding Portal-wrapped WBTC token is minting on Solana.

This integration injects substantial liquidity into the Solana ecosystem. As Wormhole revealed, an estimated $150,000 worth of WBTC is now available for multichain deployments.

The influence of Wormhole extends far beyond WBTC’s integration with Solana. The interoperability platform for multichain applications and bridges empowers developers with access to liquidity. This supports a fertile ground for use cases encompassing DeFi, Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs), governance, and more.

Citing earlier statements from Crypto News Flash, the Wormhole platform’s user base spans over 30 prominent blockchain networks.

The team behind Wormhole boasts a stellar reputation, having garnered the trust of renowned players in the industry, including Circle and Uniswap. In April, Fantom Foundation announced the launch of its USDC.e stablecoin on the Wormhole platform. This was done in collaboration with Circle and Wormhole, as Crypto News Flash earlier indicated.

Notably, Wormhole has facilitated over $35 billion in transfers through more than 1 billion cross-chain messages, a testament to its reliability and scalability.

Solana’s Multi-Pronged Approach to Bitcoin Embrace

While WBTC’s arrival marks a crucial milestone, it is just one facet of Solana’s broader strategy to embrace Bitcoin. The Solana network is developing a cutting-edge cross-chain bridge slated for launch in Q3 2024, citing earlier statements from Crypto News Flash. This bridge, powered by the Zeus Network and its Zeus Program Library (ZPL), aims to connect the Solana and Bitcoin ecosystems directly.

With the integration of WBTC into the Solana ecosystem, the broader crypto community will be watching closely to see the impact on the native token, SOL. At press time, SOL is trading at $137.95, demonstrating an 8.4% increase in the past 24 hours, per data from MarketCap.

The market capitalization is pegged at $63.4 billion, while the trading volume increased 38% to over $3 billion.

With more expansion on the horizon for the Solana ecosystem, SOL could see more price increases soon.

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