Supply of Tokenized Bitcoin Dropped Significantly Since the Start of the Year

This year, the number of tokenized bitcoins hosted on alternative blockchains like Ethereum, has dropped a great deal. Last January the number of wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) issued on the Ethereum blockchain was around 266,880 WBTC and since then, the number has dropped by more than 15% down to 225,962 WBTC. Similarly, the quantity of tokenized bitcoins minted on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) dropped quite a bit over the last 11 months as well.

At the time of writing, the two largest tokenized bitcoin (BTC) projects are wrapped bitcoin (WBTC) and the BSC-issued Bitcoin BEP2 otherwise known as BTCB. However, the number of tokenized bitcoins stemming from both projects has dropped a great deal since January.

For instance, the number of BTCB in circulation on Jan. 6, 2022, was around 105,121 BTCB, according to archived coinmarketcap.com stats. Furthermore, BTC was trading for $42,738 per unit on that day, which means BTCB’s market capitalization was around $4.49 billion.

Since then, BTC’s price has shuddered and it’s a long way away from the $42K zone. The number of BTCB in circulation has dropped 49.1% to 53,444 BTCB, according to coinmarketcap.com data recorded on Nov. 25.

At an exchange rate of around $16,504 on Nov. 25, the market cap of BTCB is roughly $882 million. During the last 24 hours, BTCB has seen $3.25 million in global trade volume on a slew of decentralized exchange (dex) platforms. The dex applications with the most active BTCB trading include Pancakeswap V2, Biswap, Dodo, and Apeswap.

The largest tokenized bitcoin project WBTC has a lot more tokens than the BTCB in circulation. On Nov. 25, 2022, data shows the number of WBTC in circulation is around 225,962 WBTC and on Jan. 14, 2022, it was 266,880 WBTC.

That means during the course of 2022, the WBTC supply has been reduced by more than 15%, as 40,918 tokens were removed from circulation. Furthermore, in the last 30 days, Dune Analytics data, published by 21shares Research, shows that WBTC’s supply has dropped by 8.72%.

Of course, WBTC’s value was a lot higher on Jan. 14, as WBTC’s market valuation was around $11.35 billion. Removing over 40,000 WBTC from the supply and coupling it with BTC’s price sinking to $16K, makes WBTC’s overall market capitalization on Nov. 25, a lot less than it was at the beginning of the year.

Today, WBTC’s market valuation is roughly 3.66 billion nominal U.S. dollars and during the past 24 hours it’s seen $346.90 million in trade volume. The most active exchanges trading WBTC include Binance, Okx, Digifinex, and Hitbtc.

Tokenized bitcoin supplies have followed the same path as stablecoin supplies this year, which have shrunk a great deal in 2022. The data suggests that during the crypto winter traders are swapping their tokenized stablecoins for real U.S. dollars. With tokenized bitcoin projects like BTCB and WBTC, users swapping these tokens are looking to get their real bitcoin back.

What do you think about the reduction of tokenized bitcoin supplies during the last 11 months? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.