Members of the crypto community are discussing the number of bitcoins that have been switched to the Avalanche network, which now exceeds the total value locked in the Lightning Network. At the time of writing, there are 5,493 bitcoins in circulation on the Avalanche blockchain, while the Lightning Network holds 5,248 bitcoins.
Avalanche Bridge Bitcoin Number Exceeds Lightning Network Capacity
Last week, digital currency proponents were discussing the increasing number of bitcoin (BTC) switching to the Avalanche (AVAX) network. Seven days ago, the cryptocurrency known as BTCb saw its supply surpass the number of bitcoins locked on the Lightning Network (LN). The reason for the celebration is that LN takes less time to beat its total locked value (TVL) or capacity. At the time of writing, LN has about 5,248 bitcoin TVL, which is worth about $120 million at today’s BTC prices.
A week ago on January 16th, an Avalanche (AVAX) supporter known as “Ojrdev” tweeted about the number of bitcoins transferred to the AVAX chain. “The Avalanche moved more [bitcoin] (BTCb) is locked [the] Lightning Network,” Ojrdev he tweeted. “The Avalanche consensus mechanism is also faster than Lightning.” Many other AVAX supporters agreed and marked the milestone. While LN currently holds 5,248 BTC, according to snowtrace.io, the number of BTCb is around 5,493 BTCb worth $125.5 million at current BTC rates.
At the same time, the most tokenized bitcoin on any blockchain is the Wrapped Bitcoin project, which uses the Ethereum blockchain network. There are currently 179,697 WBTC in circulation according to the WBTC dashboard. There is also a total of 52,888.86 BTCB deposited on the Binance Smart Chain (BSC). BSC’s bitcoin storage is larger than that housed in AVAX. However, the amount of BTCb is greater than the 3,564 BTC locked on Blockstream’s Liquid Network, as well as the 3,496 RBTC on the RSK network.
The number of tokenized bitcoins hosted on alternative blockchains, networks and sidechains has been growing since 2017, but the pace accelerated further when WBTC launched in 2019. The main goal was to make the end faster and lower operating costs. And in 2020, payments on the Ethereum blockchain grew rapidly. In mid-May 2021, the average ETH fee was around $40 per transaction.
As a result, tokenized bitcoins have migrated to alternative blockchains in addition to LN and Ethereum. The rise of BTCb on AVAX shows that many crypto proponents are finding value in using a pegged version of BTC on an alternative chain. Meanwhile, the sheer number of WBTC in circulation hosted on the Ethereum blockchain has been declining over the past 12 months.
What do you think about the rise of BTCb on the Avalanche network? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.
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