Cardano (ADA) Welcomes Wrapped Bitcoin on Mainnet

One of the highlights of this week on the Cardano (ADA) network is the integration of the ability to wrap Bitcoin (BTC) on the mainnet. The deployment of cBTC on the Cardano mainnet was introduced by anetaBTC, a protocol known to bring on-chain wrapped Bitcoin to blockchains. 

This significant step which brings BTC to the Cardano network is crucial to the improvement of blockchain interoperability. 

Cardano Wrapped Bitcoin Benefits

With this recent deployment, users can effortlessly interact with both tokens on a single network. 

While the development facilitates interoperability of blockchains, it is also a strategic approach of attracting a wider audience as well as Total Value Locked (TVL) on Bitcoin which is known to have the highest market capitalization in the entire crypto industry. 

Currently, the market cap of BTC is approximately $572 billion, about half of the total crypto market cap.

Alongside the launch and deployment of the anetaBTC protocol, Cardano has completed the mint of BTC on its mainnet. Precisely, anetaBTC shared a screenshot showing that 1.706 cBTC has been minted successfully. 

New BTC successfully minted on Cardano.

🔄 Minted: 1.706 cBTC
👼 Total: 6.19 cBTC

Mint here ⛅️👇https://t.co/j6vHNUKIlL pic.twitter.com/FZ5LFgqd8o

— anetaBTC 👼 Mainnet Live (@anetaBTC) August 12, 2023

Moreso, the on-chain protocol noted that a total of 6.19 cBTC has been minted on the Cardano network so far. 

More Bullish Cardano Updates

More upgrades are expected in the future as regards the anetaBTC protocol. Already, anetaBTC version 2 is in the works and its release is expected in the near future.

Other highlights of this week include the 73.2 million transactions recorded on the Cardano blockchain. Also, the total number of policies reported was over 78,000, and about 137 projects were launched on the ADA blockchain. Another milestone is the pre-release of node v.8.2.1-pre for use on SanchoNet. 

SanchoNet is a new development network designed to expose the Cardano ecosystem to governance features from CIP-1694 and to build and test together in a controlled environment. 

Lace v.1.4 was also released by the Lace team with newly integrated features like “ADA Handle” support enhancement and bug fixes. Input Output Global (IOG), the startup behind Cardano shared an update about the plan to expand Mithril solution to Africa.