21.co has integrated Chainlink Proof of Reserve on Solana and Ethereum mainnets to increase transparency for its Wrapped Bitcoin (21BTC). This step automates real-time reserve verification and enables secure generation of 21BTC.
“21Shares and Chainlink have played a fundamentally important role in ensuring the adoption of a more secure blockchain infrastructure, and we are excited to see 21Shares integrate Chainlink Proof of Reserve in support of 21BTC,” said Johann Eid, Chief Business Officer at Chainlink Labs.
Eid added that Proof of Reserve plays a role in enabling a secure coin function, which is an important step toward creating a trusted framework that enables the tokenization of trillions of dollars of value.
Launched on Solana in May 2024 and expanded to Ethereum in September 2024, 21BTC is a native token fully backed 1:1 by Bitcoin reserves held in cold storage and institutional custody. Chainlink Proof of Reserve provides on-chain updates on the status of these BTC reserves.
“The industry standard Chainlink Proof of Reserve is critical to providing transparency into the reserves backing 21BTC, to help secure its coin function and support its widespread adoption in the Solana and Ethereum ecosystems,” said Eliezer Ndinga , Head of Strategy and Business Development, Digital Assets at 21.co, added.
Ndinga also emphasized the need for a secure coin feature, one that gives users greater assurance that 21BTC is fully supported by BTC 1:1.
The integration offers several benefits, including programmatic utility, increased trust through secure coin operations, decentralization and transparency. Users can independently verify asset collateral in real time.