The crypto industry is experiencing a historic moment with the passage of a Bitcoin spot ETF. At present, the markets focus has gradually returned from market conditions to industry innovation and long-term growth.
A new batch of Layer 2 and Layer 1 are competing to make a difference, and the ancient primitive multi-chain ecology has once again become a new topic in the encryption market. With the transformation of hot public chains in the market, the development of industry infrastructure will also undergo tremendous changes as the ecology flourishes.
Today, in the rapidly developing world of Web3, interoperability is far more important than before. This includes both the cross-chain liquidity of assets and the transfer of cross-chain information.
Axelar Network (AXL), which Odaily has recently focused on, is creating a more interconnected Web3 infrastructure and building a good technical foundation for the upcoming large-scale adoption of Web3.
Why does cross-chain infrastructure need innovation?
The former DeFi Summer craze brought about the influx of new concepts such as DeFi, multi-chain, and cross-chain. Now, as time has advanced to 2024, the post-ETF era, some investors may be confused. Can these ancient concepts still have a foothold in the market?
The answer is yes. As the infrastructure of the multi-chain era, cross-chain interoperability protocols are not only still active in the market, but also increasingly penetrate into the bottom of the ecosystem. They not only directly provide services to retail investors, but also rely on the composability characteristics of the encryption ecosystem and a variety of The protocol has been integrated to provide Web3 newcomers with an easy-to-use and seamless high-quality experience.
Data from Dune Analytics and Binance Research show that the number of transactions on cross-chain communication protocols has grown significantly since the end of 2022, reaching an all-time high in the third quarter of 2023.
Image source: Binance Research, data as of November 17, 2023
Obviously, driven by multiple factors such as market recovery, the growth of multiple new networks, and the reactivation of applications, the surge in cross-chain activities is extremely significant. This also illustrates to the market that this ancient DeFi primitive is returning to the center of the market.
In this round of cross-chain growth, there are also new changes and innovations that are different from the previous cycle. As the market matures, developers exploration of cross-chain technology has gradually improved, and some valuable practices have also been produced. Among many cross-chain related products, Axelar Network (AXL) is one of the more unique ones.
Axelar Network (AXL) now supports more than 56 major public chains,It includes mainstream EVM networks such as Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Polygon, as well as Layer 2 such as Base, Arbitrum, Optimism, and non-EVM Cosmos.
Binance Research tracked the support of major cross-chain interoperability protocols for 60 major networks and found that Axelar Network (AXL) supports 53 of them.Ranked first in number of supported networks。
Image source: Binance Research, data as of November 17, 2023
Axelar Network (AXL) has experienced a surge in popularity since 2023, with both the number of transactions and the number of active users growing. Based on this liquidity, transactions powered by the Axelar Network (AXL) are settled faster than on a single blockchain. Currently, DEX has achieved the same capabilities as CEX: trading any token on any chain.
Image source: Binance Research, as of November 17, 2023
Axelar Network (AXL) officialData Display，The total transaction volume generated by a group of DEXs that cooperate with Axelar Network (AXL) has accounted for more than half of all DEX transaction volumes.. Georgios Vlachos, co-founder of Axelar Network (AXL), believes that “the rising adoption levels show the utility of the Axelar Network (AXL) network for DEXs that are building a seamless user experience for mass adoption.”
With the infrastructure and cross-chain capabilities of Axelar Network (AXL), users can easily access and trade assets across different chains, allowing the industry to benefit from the upcoming mass adoption of Web3 and more interconnected and interoperable encryption ecosystem.
How is Axelar Network (AXL) changing the way competition is played on the track?
As the application layer changes, the Web3 ecosystem has more and more use cases, which also brings new needs. Interoperability between chains requires the transfer of not only assets, but also information.
Odaily noticed an interesting old news. As early as 2022, Georgios Vlachos stated at a public event that the vision of Axelar Network (AXL) from the beginning was that different blockchains could focus on different use cases. And Axelar Network (AXL)It is not just a cross-chain bridge, but also a cross-chain information transmission layer, allowing users to build various applications on it.
The team observed at this time that most of the cross-chain bridges seen in the market at that time existed in pairs on two chains and could only transfer assets.
Axelar Network (AXL), through its implementation of General Messaging (“GMP”) functionality,Can support complex cross-chain function calls and status synchronization. Interoperability is no longer limited to the asset field, which inspires the composability of the entire Web3 ecosystem. Of course, it also promotes the increase in the usage of Axelar Network (AXL).
The recent popularity of Ondo Finance is a typical example that proves the effectiveness of GMP. The RWA platform Ondo Finance integrates GMP functions to develop a bridge and achieves unified on-chain USDY liquidity. This allows users to manage their own multi-chain liquidity on one network.
In addition to inter-chain communication, active integration with partners is also a reason for the rapid development of Axelar Network (AXL). Axelar Network (AXL) has done well over the past year. Several leading DEXs, including dYdX, Vertex, PancakeSwap, etc., have introduced Axelar Network (AXL) as the backend.
Unlike other cross-chain bridges that cater directly to retail investors, Axelar Network (AXL) does more work on the back end that is invisible to users. Axelar Network (AXL) actively integrates with dApps and is committed to providing users with a seamless liquidity cross-chain experience.
In September 2023, dYdX v4 was integrated with Axelar Network (AXL). By using the cross-chain service of Axelar Network (AXL) and Squid, users can more conveniently complete deposits and withdrawals on dYdX, and complete the transfer of fiat currencies in just one step. exchange.
In November 2023, Uniswap also completed integration with Axelar Network (AXL). Uniswap has chosen to use Axelar Network (AXL) as a secure solution to manage its cross-chain governance. Prior to this, the choice of Uniswap’s governance bridge was controversial. Axelar Networks (AXL) Interchain Governance Orchestrator framework provides a solid alternative. It simplifies the complex process of multi-chain dApp management by allowing developers to perform governance operations on all their deployments from one place. Uniswap V3 is deployed on the Filecoin Virtual Machine (FVM) based on this framework.
On January 17 this year, Lido’s cross-chain bridge controversy finally came to an end, with Axelar Wormhole winning the vote with a high vote. Previously in October 2023, LayerZero established the stETH cross-chain bridge and sought approval from Lido DAO. But LayerZero deployed the cross-chain bridge before official approval. This incident sparked widespread controversy due to the inappropriate marketing practices of LayerZero.
Lido DAO launched a temperature check vote, and the results showed that Axelar Wormholes support rate as the developer of BNB Chains wstETH cross-chain bridge reached 81.1%. This result reflects the community’s preference for transparency and consensus in decentralized networks. The extremely high support rate also illustrates that Axelar is widely praised by the community.
At the end of January this year, Axelar Network and Immutable completed the integration. This allows games on Immutable zkEVM to attract players from across the Ethereum ecosystem. By integrating into the Axelar network, games built on Immutable zkEVM can span more than 56 blockchain networks, with built-in programmability, security, and scalability in the cross-chain network layer.
Of course, in the eyes of traditional companies, Axelar is also a trustworthy object, whether it is a traditional financial giant like JPMorgan Chase or a technology giant like Microsoft.
As early as November 2023, JPMorgan Chase partnered with a number of blockchain companies, led by Axelar, to conduct a proof of concept for the tokenization of funds. JPMorgan’s Onyx Digital Assets partners with interoperability layer Axelar, infrastructure provider Oasis Pro and Provenance Blockchain to manage large-scale client portfolios, execute trades and enable automated portfolio management of tokenized assets.
In July 2023, Axelar established a partnership with Microsoft to better integrate Web3 and traditional Internet systems. The parties will explore how blockchain can help ensure trust and accelerate the integration of AI in mainstream use cases. The two parties will work together to advance blockchain adoption and lower the barriers to entry by building a data integration and interoperability layer.
The latest developments regarding Axelar Network (AXL) can be found at itsOfficialCheck.
Gas Pricing Reform: AXL Takeoff Code?
There are numerous important updates on Axelar’s 2024 roadmap. But perhaps the one that resonates most with currency holders is the reform of the gas pricing mechanism.
Gas pricing reforms will improve the accuracy of services estimating cross-chain gas fees on the Axelar Network (AXL) network.
In Axelar’s roadmap, we discovered a new gas burning mechanism that has the potential to deflate the network and further protect the Axelar Network (AXL) network.
Or lets put it more simply - the updated AXL token economic model can improve the utility of the AXL token as the Axelar network expands, and strengthen the value capture of the network. As activity on the new chain increases, adding a step to the process will involve burning gas between the gas receiver and the network. It also implies a clear expectation that in the long run,AXL became deflationary overall.
Another benefit for the network is that the gas pricing reform will improve the accuracy of services that estimate cross-chain gas fees on the Axelar Network (AXL) network.
As the multi-chain world becomes more robust, we are getting more and more new networks. Axelar is a permissionless connection component that connects them. When Axelar connects to a new network, support from Axelar developers andAxelar validator votes. This could become a significant driver of demand for AXL tokens.
The future of cross-chain: full-stack interoperability
This follows significant progress for the network in 2023. In the current year of 2024, Axelar Network (AXL) still has a longer way to go.
Axelar Network (AXL) SelectedFull stack interoperabilityThis is a challenging concept. This is a way to build Web3 that the existing Internet infrastructure cannot support. With the efforts of developers, we will work together to build functional Dapps that are easy to use and approximate the traditional Internet application experience.
To supplement the introduction, full-stack interoperability means that Axelar Network (AXL) supports not only the asset cross-chain of traditional bridges, but also the interoperability of information, and also supports permissionless coverage of programmability, Execute smart contracts and dApps across the network.
And this huge idea is being implemented step by step in the 2024 roadmap of Axelar Network (AXL).
The Axelar Network (AXL) virtual machine is the most important part of the 2024 plan.
Powered by Cosmwasm,The Axelar Network (AXL) virtual machine turns interoperability into a programmable layer.It enables developers to write smart contracts on Axelar Network (AXL) while scaling their inter-chain deployments and “programming” the cross-chain network layer. The Axelar Network (AXL) Virtual Machine (AVM) is developed based on Cosmwasm and turns interoperability into a programmable layer.
Specifically, the Axelar Network (AXL) virtual machine will allow developers to build their Dapps on EVM, Cairo VM, Cosmos or other ecosystems and run them on all chains. AVM inherits almost all mainstream consensuses in the encryption world, including Solana, Stellar, Move-based Aptos and Sui.
This makes it easier for developers to expand their cross-chain projects, while also abstracting cross-chain tasks (such as token exchange) to reduce the burden on developers. It provides developers with an easier way to deploy cross-chain projects. Once developed, all mainstream consensuses can be covered. Convenient cross-chain links can amplify potential network effects and integrate into the currently prosperous multi-chain ecosystem.
And AVM is a complex system, and its charm doesnt stop there. When AVM is fully deployed, the system includesInterchain Token Service (ITS), Interchain Amplifier and Interchain Maestro. This set of tools can provide developers with richer Web3 composability.
Specifically, interchain tokens extend native fungibility and customization capabilities across all connected chains. ITS scales tokens across chains while maintaining their native properties, providing teams with an easy way to mint tokens and manage supply and functionality.
Interchain Amplifier enables permissionless connections to any chain, simplifying the process of supporting new chains by incentivizing validators and aggregating AXL tokens through third-party sources.
Interchain Maestro is a tool that enables developers to deploy and manage multi-chain dApp instances.Build once, run anywhere.
Convenient cross-chain links can amplify potential network effects and integrate into the currently prosperous multi-chain ecosystem.
Feedback to the data results, Axelarscan shows, in56 itemsOn supported chains, Axelar Network (AXL) has been completed1.26 milliontransactions, over7.5 billionUSD volume, completed525Deployment of inter-chain contracts.
In the future, with the prosperity of the Layer 2 ecosystem, we may or will have hundreds or even thousands of different blockchain networks. In an increasingly complex multi-chain ecosystem, how developers deploy applications and how users interact with applications will become a complex and multi-dimensional challenge.
Axelar Network (AXL) has given its idea - neither users nor developers need to care about where the dApp is deployed. Developers only need the Axelar Network (AXL) protocol based on full-stack interoperability to achieve one-time deployment of multiple chains. Users do not need to worry about which network they need to operate. Axelar Network (AXL) will provide a seamless interactive experience across multiple chains.
Perhaps this is the future of Web3 we expect, a world no longer limited to a single blockchain. It brings full-stack interoperability to the crypto ecosystem,It provides developers with unprecedented freedom while providing users with a seamless cross-chain experience.Everyone can focus on the powerful Dapp itself and freely shuttle through the multi-chain world of Web3.
The crypto world is already bursting with innovation and change, and Axelar Network (AXL) is paving the way for this exciting future as we embrace the mass adoption of Web3.
