How to verify Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) issuance I'm trying to understand how Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) issuance can be verified.
The WBTC custodian, BitGo, published the following material:
https://wbtc.network/dashboard/audit
This is a list of Bitcoin addresses linked to Blockstream explorer where you can verify the UTXOs each address has access to (wallet balances, if you will). The sum total of these balances is equal to the amount of WBTC minted by BitGo.
However, how do I know that BitGo has the private keys for those UTXOs? Am I supposed to just accept the bonafides of BitGo and their audits, or is the a technical way to remove that trust?
However, how do I know that BitGo has the private keys for those UTXOs?

You need to trust Bitgo that they have the keys.

Am I supposed to just accept the bonafides of BitGo and their audits, or is the a technical way to remove that trust?

Those transactions and UTXOs are only helpful in transparency to some extent and keep track of things. You still need to trust BitGo for everything involving WBTC token.
Also there can be other issues with such tokens: https://twitter.com/jchervinsky/status/1344385524086161408
Anyone can create such tokens and publish some data on their website for random transactions. Example: I can create a token on a network which has nothing to do with Bitcoin. Use the symbol &quot;PBTC&quot; for it. Do some transactions, share some UTXOs on website and the marketing team promotes it as &quot;PBTC scales Bitcoin and is better than Bitcoin&quot;. People who use this token will have to trust me, use the network that it was created for and imagine it is same as BTC because symbol &quot;PBTC&quot;.