World Liberty Financial, backed by the family of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, on Wednesday exchanged about $10 million worth of Coinbase’s (COIN) wrapped bitcoin, cbBTC, for rival WBTC.
Wrapped bitcoin is a form of the world’s largest cryptocurrency that can be used in decentralized finance (DeFi) on blockchains other than Bitcoin.
Coinbase introduced cbBTC in September, and in November said it would delist WBTC, citing its listing standards. That action prompted BiT Global, a custodian involved in WBTC, to sue the crypto exchange to prevent the removal. A court ruled against BiT Global on Wednesday.
There’s one more link in the chain: Justin Sun, the founder of the Tron blockchain and one of CoinDesk’s Most Influential 2024. In its defense, Coinbase cited BiT Global’s links to Sun, who has been accused of fraud and market manipulation in the U.S., as an “unacceptable risk.” Sun, who denies the accusations, also became an adviser to World Liberty Financial, a position he gained after picking up a $30 million stake in the platform last month in exchange for WLFI tokens.
World Liberty Finance has not explicitly stated its decision to swap the tokens. On-chain data shows it has been active in the market in the past week, picking up millions of dollars worth of Aave (AAVE), Chainlink’s LINK and Ethena’s ENA tokens, all companies related to it through partnerships or integrations.
Sun has little to do with WBTC directly. In August, BitGo, the original and longtime custodian of the bitcoin backing WBTC, said it would distribute control over the project’s custody to three entities globally (including BiT Global) instead of just one to help decentralize the operation.
BiT Global is registered as a Trust and Company Service Provider (TCSP) in Hong Kong and is a “strategic partnership between BitGo, Justin Sun, and the Tron ecosystem,” according to the August release.
Sun has no direct or indirect involvement on the cap table of those companies or the listed shareholders of BiT Global, board member Robert Liu said in an October interview
Some board members believe Sun’s involvement is actually “good for WBTC,” he said, given the success of Tron, crypto exchange HTX and other businesses.
“The Tron blockchain has more than 50% of global market share,” Liu said. “They have the highest turnover rate. So people have no issue putting more than $60 billion of the stablecoin assets circulating on Tron blockchain.”