WBTC loses its peg to Bitcoin on Justin Sun-backed Poloniex

Justin Sun’s crypto exchange Poloniex sees WBTC trading at a 20% discount, raising concerns about its peg to Bitcoin.

The price of Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) in its trading pair with BTC on Poloniex has fallen 22%, raising concerns about the exchange’s ability to offer trading in the WBTC/BTC pair.

According to data from Poloniex, the exchange did not record any trading activity in the pair in the last few days. At the time of writing, WBTC is trading at a 22% discount to BTC, implying a value of approximately $48,738 at par. WBTC’s trading activity on Poloniex suddenly stopped on March 26 and there has been no change in trading activity since then.

WBTC statement on Poloniex | Source: Poloniex

It is unclear whether Poloniex offers WBTC on the Ethereum network or TRON. Although an earlier blog announcement from the exchange introduced TRON-based WBTC, Poloniex’s description section for the WBTC/BTC pair still references WBTC as a token based on ERC-20, an Ethereum blockchain token standard.

WBTC related trading pairs on Poloniex as of April 30 | Source: Poloniex

Despite the depeg, WBTC continues to trade freely on Poloniex in a pair with USDT, a stablecoin issued by Tether. On HTX (formerly Huobi), another crypto exchange affiliated with Justin Sun, WBTC appears to maintain its peg to BTC, but trades on the pair are also showing zero activity over the past 24 hours. At the time of this writing, neither Poloniex nor Justin Sun have released any public statements on the matter.