The price of Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) on Binance has hit an all-time low, briefly touching around $5,200 on November 23, 2024, in a sudden price drop incident that did not affect the price of this asset on other exchanges.
WBTC started the trading day at the usual price around $98K before plummeting due to an electronic glitch affecting the trading system — the most common cause of such sudden price dips.
The price recovered almost immediately, and the daily candle of Wrapped Bitcoin on the Binance exchange closed around the $97K level and is now trading at normal levels.
The sudden price dip of Wrapped Bitcoin occurred just a few days after Coinbase announced its intention to delist WBTC in a notice on November 19. "Coinbase will cease trading WBTC on December 19, 2024, at or around 12:00 PM Eastern Time," the exchange said on social media.
The sudden price dip of WBTC on Binance. Source: TradingView
Coinbase faces criticism for delisting WBTC
"We regularly monitor assets on the platform to ensure they meet our listing standards," Coinbase said in the WBTC delisting notice, but also assured customers that their WBTC balances would still be withdrawable.
In a statement to TinTucBitcoin, BiT Global, the organization overseeing WBTC, claimed that Coinbase is delisting WBTC to prioritize its own Bitcoin-backed product, cbBTC, to gain an advantage over other Bitcoin-backed assets. A BiT Global spokesperson wrote:
"It's clear that Coinbase's decision is an effort to gain an advantage, to push their own Bitcoin-backed product, cbBTC, and to eliminate the largest and most influential competitor in WBTC."
Coinbase launched cbBTC in September 2024 amid controversies over Wrapped Bitcoin's transition to a multi-jurisdictional governance structure. The multi-jurisdictional governance structure shares custody of the private keys of the underlying BTC between the United States, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
The involvement of TRON founder Justin Sun in the new governance arrangement has raised many concerns in the Crypto community — leading to a previous backlash from the Maker community, now known as Sky. This backlash ultimately resulted in the Sky community voting to remove WBTC as a collateral asset in their platform.
