anetaBTC

AnetaBTC is a fully on-chain, decentralized protocol that allows Bitcoin to be directly wrapped on the Ergo and Cardano blockchains. AnetaBTC enables Bitcoin holders to unlock the value of their assets in a secure and efficient environment to provide yield, without selling any Bitcoin and without any third-party custodian involvement, as in the case of wBTC which is on the Ethereum blockchain and is the largest wrapped Bitcoin protocol today with over $14 billion of locked Bitcoin value.

Wrapped Bitcoin has the potential to provide the Ergo and Cardano platforms essential liquidity required for most all DeFi applications by transferring the full value of Bitcoin on a 1:1 basis — the total current market capitalization of Bitcoin exceeds $1.1 trillion, while the total value of wrapped Bitcoin on the Ethereum blockchain nears $20 billion.

AnetaBTC is crucial infrastructure to progress blockchain technology and decentralization — true decentralization, without any third-party intermediaries. AnetaBTC will be entirely on-chain using Ergo smart contracts and fully compatible with cross-chain decentralized exchanges on Cardano and Ergo.

The blockchain industry has somewhat veered from the initial concepts and principles that were laid out by Satoshi Nakamoto. As blockchain adoption increases, a vast majority of platforms have forsaken decentralization in exchange for transaction throughput and convenient implementation of smart contracts at the expense of security and censorship resistance.

There are two blockchains in particular, however, that have been structured and implemented to be two of the most truly decentralized blockchain platforms in existence today: Ergo and Cardano.

With the introduction of Ethereum, decentralized finance has grown rapidly with the advent of smart contract capabilities. The total locked-value on blockchain DeFi platforms currently exceeds $100 billion from zero just a few short years ago.

Wrapped Bitcoin allows holders to utilize Bitcoin in a wide array of DeFi applications such as yield-earning products, derivatives such as futures and options, and one of the most important pillars of the entire blockchain DeFi ecosystem going forward — stablecoins.

In 2019, investors were introduced to the first wrapped Bitcoin product, WrappedBTC (wBTC). The creation of wBTC by BitGo, Kyber Network, and Ren, formerly known as Republic Protocol was revolutionary in its own right, but wBTC is entirely centralized due to BitGo being the sole custodian for wBTC and this entity, partly owned by Goldman Sachs, has full legal control of all locked Bitcoin wrapped in wBTC.

Unlike wBTC, anetaBTC is entirely non-custodial, and all Bitcoin backing anetaBTC on a 1:1 basis is locked by fully-audited and open-source smart contracts that allow Bitcoin holders to directly mint and redeem anetaBTC. AnetaBTC seeks to be a truly decentralized, wrapped Bitcoin product on a secure third-generation blockchain platform with low and predictable transaction fees.

Aside from being centralized, wBTC is built on Ethereum, meaning wBTC users are subjected to the arbitrary high fee structure of Ethereum. AnetaBTC is built on the Ergo platform with a predictably low deterministic fee structure and will also be fully compatible with the Cardano blockchain. With Ergo and Cardano both having a predictable, low-cost fee structure, we are confident DeFi applications utilizing anetaBTC will have tremendous utility compared to wBTC with transaction fees exceeding at times $500 per transaction on Ethereum compared to anetaBTC with expected transaction fees of less than $1 allowing for far greater DeFi activity, even high-frequency trading that has a potential capacity of well over 70 million transactions per second.

The current transaction fee for Ergo stands at 0.0011 ERG, which is approximately $0.01 per transaction. Additionally, Ergo has built-in security and privacy tools such as ErgoMixer, which allows users to freely trade their native Ergo assets privately, somewhat similar conceptually to Monero ring signatures. Interoperability is another significant consideration, and tools like ErgoDEX allow for users to swap anetaBTC with any native Ergo and Cardano asset.

With anetaBTC, users are empowered to unlock the value of their Bitcoin holdings in a decentralized, secure, and convenient manner thus allowing participation in the rapidly growing DeFi ecosystem, earning yield without selling any Bitcoin.