Traders apathetic as Huobi launches two new wrapped assets on Ethereum

Following the success of HBTC — the wrapped Bitcoin tradable on Ethereum currently securing nearly $70 million in BTC — Huobi Global has released the latest in its “H-token” series: Litecoin and Bitcoin SV. 

However, traders and developers thus far don’t seem interested.

First announced in September, the H-token series promised to bring a wide range of assets to Ethereum. Huobi CIO and head of Huobi DeFi Labs, Sharlyn Wu, said in a press release that the offerings would be aimed at empowering the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem with a broad range of collateralized wrapped assets. 

“Huobi’s mission in DeFi is to provide the community with more high-quality assets, to make DeFi more inclusive, to make the global financial system better, and to realize the vision of enabling hundreds of millions of people around the world to truly benefit from the development of DeFi,” she said.

It remains an open question if traders and DeFi developers have any interest in some of the new assets Huobi is bringing to Ethereum. 

The two latest offerings have seen scant traffic. HBSV, Huobi’s wrapped version of Bitcoin SV, launched over a week ago, but on-chain metrics show that only 12 wallets currently hold the token, including the Huobi exchange wallet. The last time any HBSV was transferred — of 35 transactions in total — was 5 days ago. 

Meanwhile, HLTC, the wrapped Litecoin which launched on Friday, sports a measly 7 holders and 21 total transactions. 

There is a chance interest in the wrapped coins could pick up in the future, however.

Allen Scott, head of Cointelegraph Markets, explained that the tepid response to the assets could be due to current market conditions:

“Investors are likely unwilling to hold these since there’s little incentive to hold a ‘wrapped’ asset whose market cap is a lot smaller than the wrapper itself, or in this case Ether. Moreover, altcoins have been underperforming vs. BTC in recent months.”