The Cross-Chain Roundup #23
Week Roundup (April 24 - 30, 2023)
While the market is slowly churning, only memecoins are pumping. Meanwhile, ChatGPT is quietly taking over what’s left, it’s really just another week in crypto land. A great week for those loading up on frog coins, and a productive week for those who were able to stop checking their bags every five minutes and get on with building.
Beneath the hood, where protocols meet the base layer, there’s innovation stirring. While developmental progress and market progress are invariably out of sync, you can’t have one without the other. It’s the DeFi primitives and lending products being pioneered now that will carry the market through its next cycle. When precisely? We still don’t know. What exactly? Here we have a better idea of the sort of innovations that will form the foundations for the next adoption cycle. Here’s a selection of the stories that have caused ripples this week – some of which will make great waves further down the line.
📰Cross-Chain Updates
NFT marketplace Blur has introduced a borrowing and lending protocol with perpetual loans. Its Blend product will offer access to liquidity for NFT holders without specific expiration dates that can place the NFT at risk. Instead of expiration dates, loans have set amounts and rates, accruing interest until the balance is repaid.
Having completed an $18M raise, Omni is dead set on building the first interoperability layer for Ethereum. It will serve as the core infrastructure powering all modular applications on Ethereum. When building applications, developers will no longer be forced to build within the confines of a single rollup or execution environment: they will be able to seamlessly build applications that exist everywhere in Ethereum’s ecosystem, accessing all users and all capital simultaneously.
Tisperse is a new public goods dapp by the Router Protocol team. Tisperse makes it easy to distribute testnet tokens from one address to multiple addresses, fixing the limitations of traditional token faucets. It supports native tokens like MATIC, BNB, and AVAX, as well as ERC20 tokens, ensuring broad utility across multiple networks and token standards.
Catalyst is a new product that allows any chain to permissionlessly connect liquidity to that of another chain. New chains can automatically transfer to/from any other chain from day one, providing cross-chain liquidity from genesis. Interested parties can join the waitlist to be the first to know when the testnet and mainnet are shipped.
Socket DataLayer (Socket DL), an incentivized testnet, launched on May 1. SocketSentinels comprise a collective of security researchers, interoperability and rollup experts, hackers, and developers tasked with driving long-term security for the Socket Protocol. SocketSentinels function as the security arm to the core team to lead Socket. As part of its commitment to providing the most secure interoperability protocol, Socket has allocated 5% of any future Socket tokens towards this and other security initiatives.
Gasless transactions, something Biconomy has introduced to a string of EVM networks lately, are now arriving on Avalanche. Dapps on Avalanche will be able to leverage the power of the Biconomy SDK to create hyper-smooth and scalable user-flows for sustainable growth. The Biconomy SDK will support not only gasless tx, but also batched tx and the ability to build custom modules to enable features like session keys, recovery, and automatic payments.
What does legacy finance have to do with blockchain interoperability? More than you might think. Mastercard has welcomed Axelar Network as one of six new startups it’s working with. Under the Start Path Digital Assets program, startups will receive bespoke training, access to Mastercard’s channels and customers, as well as subject matter expertise, and an opportunity for technical collaboration.
📊Bridge Stats
Key data insights from the bridging ecosystem in the past week👇
7-Day Bridge Statistics
Daily Active Users
Total Bridge Fees Collected
Total Value Locked
Disclaimer: Bridges covered are Stargate, Synapse, Across, Connext, Hop Protocol, Ren and Allbridge. Data sourced from Token Terminal.
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