First Mover: Tron's Play for WBTC Shows Competition to Relieve Ethereum Congestion

Wrapped bitcoin is a tokenized version of the largest cryptocurrency, reformatted so it can move easily on a non-Bitcoin blockchain.

It's become popular among users of the Ethereum blockchain partly because traders can deposit the tokens in various decentralized finance or "DeFi" applications to receive juicy interest rates.

Bitcoin doesn't pay interest or dividends, a fact that sometimes draws comparisons to a "Pet rock." So DeFi is one of the main places that holders of bitcoin can go to make money off their holdings, aside from the usual speculative price gains.

Just Thursday, the cryptocurrency fund Three Arrows minted some 2,316 WBTC tokens, the largest-ever single issuance, for use on the Ethereum blockchain, Voell reported.

The past few months' explosion in DeFi, with the debut of automated trading platforms like Uniswap and copycat SushiSwap, has jammed the Ethereum network with congestion, driving up transaction fee rates and prompting rival blockchains to offer competing venues for developing new applications.

Now Tron apparently wants a piece of the thriving DeFi business.

There is so much more development and activity taking place on Ethereum that DeFi traders are unlikely to decamp en masse to Tron.

Bitcoin: Options open interest hits record $2.1B with notional value of $1B set to expire Friday, potentially triggering volatility.

Wrapped Bitcoin: Three Arrows Capital mints 2,316 of the Ethereum-ready tokens, single largest issuance.

Uniswap: Users claim 78% of existing UNI supply in first week, though Glassnode Insights op-ed argues that transition toward token-based governance via the UNI token falls far short of true decentralization.