The MEV supply chain is critical to the future performance and business models of the Solana network. Solana is in a phase of actively searching for, and ultimately choosing its MEV supply chain. One approach is to replicate the model established on Ethereum, building a searching and block-building marketplace. This path has multiple downsides, such as artificially introducing a global mempool that would increase Solana’s latency, and may also increase the risk of centralization and censorship.
We’re happy to announce that Chorus One has released a whitepaper today where we contrast the most relevant characteristics of Ethereum and Solana; review some of the features of the block-building marketplace model, i.e “flashbots-like model”, and what retrofitting it onto Solana would entail.
Given the particularities of Solana, we also propose an alternative to the block-building marketplace: the solana-mev client. This model allows for decentralized extraction by validators, through a modified Solana validator client, capable of handling MEV opportunities directly in the banking stage of the validator. Along with the whitepaper, Chorus One is also releasing an open-source prototype implementation of the approach detailed inside the whitepaper itself.
The client can be run by any validator. Even small validators or those with no specific expertise can benefit from MEV rewards by choosing to run the solana-mev client. That means the validators will be able to execute MEV strategies as they appear in their slot, in contrast with the current competitive aspect of searching, which results in a few winner bots extracting the value.
The model shrinks the incentive for independent bots to spam the network which ultimately contributes to episodes of intense traffic, as most of them send transactions targeting the same MEV opportunities.
Given that not all MEV strategies can be implemented inside the validator, independent searchers will continue to play a relevant role in the MEV space on Solana. That is guaranteed by their advantage of quickly building and updating sophisticated strategies, as well as expanding their focus to newly deployed programs and pools. This includes long-tail MEV.
In summary, the MEV client enables permissionless and decentralized extraction that benefits the ecosystem through transparent and ethical strategies, as well as increased financial returns for network participants.
For a comprehensive overview of the motivations and the model, please refer to the whitepaper here.
Mars will bring a multi-chain lending market to the Cosmos, enabling yield-seeking and margin trading applications like shorting and leveraged longs on any integrated Cosmos SDK chain, starting with Osmosis.
Mars started as a lending protocol on the Terra chain and has been working to launch its own Cosmos chain after the Terra LUNA and UST collapse. Users who held MARS on Terra may be eligible to claim a newly minted MARS token after the launch of Mars Hub. These MARS tokens will be available via Station, Terra’s new interchain wallet, and Keplr as soon as Mars Hub is live. More information about the airdrop is in the blogpost.
Below, we explore some of the new concepts associated with Mars v2 to address the diverse use cases of borrow & lending, trading and yield farming protocols, that usually disperse users’ capital and, consequently, dry up liquidity.
Mars’ innovative Hub and Outpost architecture allows the protocol to be deployed onto every Cosmos chain. The outposts comprise of two main applications, Red Bank and the Rover. The Outposts can be seen as bank branches, where users can deposit chain-specific tokens for lending that will generate yield. Optionally, the deposit can serve as collateral to borrow assets to be used on other Cosmos chains. Yield is generated from interest accrued from Red Bank borrowers. This revenue stream is paid out to Red Bank depositors, Mars Hub stakers, and the Safety Fund atop Mars Hub.
The Red Bank is engineered to lend not just to individuals but to specific whitelisted smart contracts too. This feature is known as contract-to-contract lending (C2C).
In summary, Mars outposts are managed by Mars Hub but are deployed onto other Cosmos chains. Mars’ first outpost is scheduled to launch on Osmosis in early February with borrowing and lending support for ATOM, OSMO, and axlUSDC (Axelar USDC). The community will then be able to propose further assets to be listed via governance.
Rover is a new credit primitive that allows a user to benefit from the cross-collateralization of different positions within a sub-account. Represented by NFTS, they will provide a user with a centralized exchange style platform in a decentralized manner. The cross collateralisation enables all the positions a user has taken to be considered when determining the health of the account and thus enhances capital efficiency.
The Fields of Mars is one feature within a Rover account and consists of Vault strategies such as LYF and LLP. These Vaults via the Rover, borrow from the Red Bank and provide the leverage for the given strategy. Fields of Mars is pre-authorized to borrow without posting collateral directly into the Red Bank. It can be seen as they have a virtual ‘credit line’. It’s not that collateral doesn’t exist, but that the Fields application controls the collateral instead of the Red Bank itself.
The fields of mars allow users to, for example, leverage yield farm positions by using rover credit accounts. Users can LP assets borrowed from the local Red Bank, with the LP shares held as collateral by the smart contract. If the debt-to-collateral ratio were to exceed a safety margin, the contract would liquidate the LP share.
Source: Mars Protocol v2 whitepaper
The MARS tokens are planned to govern Mars Hub and its outposts throughout the Cosmos. Token holders would be able to stake MARS tokens and participate in on-chain governance directly on Mars Hub.
Our specialized research team actively follows up and contributes to the governance of protocol. A weekly summary of proposals and votes for the Cosmos ecosystem is released every week on Chorus One’s Twitter handle.
We also recently released a report that goes deep into the subject of governance on Cosmos. You can download it here.
Climate change is not a new phenomenon and no country is spared from its pangs. Governments & institutions have been slow in tackling it and the results are for everyone to see. The devastating hurricanes in the Atlantic, the extended droughts in the West, and the horrific floods in South Asia are all examples of the increased intensity of natural disasters due to climate change. Though there has been a gamut of initiatives that have promised to fight climate change, one of the most promising ways has been the use of carbon credits.
Carbon credits are a type of environmental commodity or certificate that companies and individuals can trade that represent carbon dioxide that’s kept out of the atmosphere by some act of conservation like reforestation. By putting a price on carbon emissions, carbon credits can help to internalize the costs of climate change and encourage businesses and individuals to find ways to reduce their emissions. Additionally, carbon credits can be traded on a market, which allows for the flexibility to find the lowest-cost emissions reductions and to reward those who are able to achieve the largest reductions. But the carbon credit market has long suffered from issues like lack of transparency, double counting, and/or creative accounting.
Tokenizing these carbon credits on the blockchain is obviously a better solution since the credits can’t be sold/traded once they’re retired, the data is publicly verifiable, and immutable too. That’s why Chorus One collaborated with Regen Network, a platform that originates digital carbon assets unlocking regenerative finance in the world of web3 to offset our carbon footprint for the years 2021 and 2020. We run and operate nodes for Proof-of-Stake networks that are extremely energy-efficient compared to, say, Bitcoin, but that’s not the end of it. We calculated our approximate CO2 emissions for the last 2 years by estimating our team’s device usage, travel to company retreats and conferences, emissions by the data centers we utilize, etc.
This also contributes to the Cosmos ZERO Carbon Campaign, an Interchain Foundation initiative for the entire Cosmos ecosystem to achieve net-zero carbon emissions for their network validator node infrastructure and operations.
CosmosZERO is the first all-ecosystem governance process, and not only keeps Cosmos at the cutting edge of competitive advantage with protocol governance leading the way across the ecosystem to offset our carbon but also is helping usher into the IBC ecosystem the new asset class of interchain carbon credits, which many believe will be uncorrelated with the crypto cycles —
Gregory Landua, Co-founder, Regen Network
We arrived at a total of 130 tons and used the Regen Marketplace to retire an equivalent amount of CO2 via The Mai Ndombe REDD+ Project and The Kasigau Corridor REDD Project. Regen Marketplace was recently launched and allows individuals and institutions to buy, sell, and retire on-chain ecological assets in a few clicks. You can view Chorus One’s portfolio of retired eco credits here.
We hope to encourage more organizations to retire their carbon offsets on-chain. At the end of the day, we have to remember that this planet is the only one we have and we have to do our part to protect it.
We are excited to announce that we have onboarded XPLA network as validators. XPLA (“Explore and Play”) is a proof-of-stake, Cosmos-based, gaming-specific L1 developed by Metamagnet in collaboration with its primary partner, the Com2uS Group, one of Korea’s leading public gaming companies. C2X, a blockchain gaming platform, was also created by Metamagnet. While C2X will remain as a gaming platform, XPLA intends to be a gaming mainnet that serves as a center for any third-party studio to make games and create media content. Game developers can quickly transition their Web2 creations to Web3 using the XPLA SDK.
With the advent of the Blockchain industry, applications that use NFTs have taken over the planet, some of which are money grabs and, in the worst instances, frauds. Because of these uses, the NFT market may pose significant dangers to both users and investors. The XPLA chain was created to address these issues and to establish the benchmark for the long-term, sustainable development of blockchain applications. XPLA chain is designed to be a platform that may embrace the blockchain media content ecosystem, with a focus on gaming, content, and entertainment that will continue to progress in the future.
Tendermint serves as the basis for XPLA, also powered by the Cosmos SDK and a PoS algorithm. The XPLA chain is designed to support not just the Cosmos ecosystem but also the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which will boost XPLA chain ecosystem usage by enabling Ethereum-based blockchain and dApps. Validators like Chorus One operate full nodes, contribute to consensus via vote broadcasting, validate new blocks on the blockchain, and participate in blockchain governance. Validators may vote on behalf of delegators, and their voting power is weighted according to the total amount staked. The validators and delegators will earn a portion of the transaction fee as compensation for new block verification and will participate in the mainnet operation with the shared objective of developing the ecosystem by managing the mainnet node. The top 130 validators enter the active set.
Validating Rights: The weight of validators is determined by the amount of staking tokens bonded as collateral.
Token distribution: The maximum supply is $2Bn XPLA tokens. Refer to the whitepaper for a detailed overview of the tokenomics.
Inflation rate: 0%
Slashing: Pledged tokens can be slashed.
Chorus One Commission: 7.5%
Re-Staking: You need to withdraw rewards and re-stake them with some frequency if you want to make use of compounding returns hence additional delegation is needed for compounding.
We are excited to announce that we have onboarded Teritori Network as validators. Teritori is a multi-chain hub aimed to link IBC and non-IBC communities, trade services and NFTs, start new projects, and expand current ones. To facilitate trade, Teritori allows users to affirm their Web3 identity & protect their reputation. The center prominently contains daily-use dApps such as an NFT launchpad, a marketplace, and social features for people and communities: Innovate, Trade, and Organize. The network will also include a DAO tooling suite, a job board, and a multichain dApp store.
Following the bull run, the Teritori team examined the ecosystem and addressed existing concerns: despite the desire to decentralize everything, most of the technologies we use on a daily basis remain centralized, resulting in scams and security vulnerabilities. Builders, on the other hand, have struggled to locate the people to execute the right job in their projects. Because the majority of our interactions are driven by community approval, protecting our identity and reputation has become critical. Teritori also plans to introduce Berty Protocol to offer a decentralized alternative to the existing Web2 communication tools we all use on a daily basis. With the transparency that’s provided in tool sharing and identity verification, Teritori seeks to solve these pain points.
Teritori is based on the Cosmos SDK chain and the governance/utility token TORI. TORI is initially very inflationary. The Teritori DAO and TORI holders will be able to vote on the blockchain’s future direction as well as the next features/dApps to be added to the ecosystem. 40% of tokens released per block will be in the form of staking incentives given to validators like Chorus One and delegators who assist to protect the chain. Validators and delegators are critical to the Teritori network’s security. At genesis, there will be 100 validators according to their stake. Additionally, Teritori is monitoring the latest developments on GNOLand in order to be among the first projects to deploy the dApps on this new ecosystem when live.
Validating Rights: The weight of validators is determined by the amount of staking tokens bonded as collateral.
Token distribution: Similar to Bitcoin’s ‘halving’, issued Tori tokens are reduced by ⅓ every year. 200M Tori tokens were issued at mainnet genesis.
Inflation rate: 126.59%
Staking APR: 491.40%
Slashing: Pledged tokens can be slashed.
Chorus One Commission: 5%
Re-Staking: You need to withdraw rewards and re-stake them with some frequency if you want to make use of compounding returns hence, additional delegation is needed for compounding.
“Sometimes a bull market, sometimes a bear market, always a builder’s market” — Sahil Lavingia
Chorus One was incorporated in 2018 when Proof-of-Stake was still in its nascency. But as all of us have seen, it’s now proven to be more secure, decentralized, and energy-efficient than Proof-of-Work. The maturity and adoption of PoS brought in increasing institutional interest as the low-risk profile of staking acted as a conducive entry point for many institutions who were testing the crypto waters. We covered more on this topic in an article some weeks back. Chorus One has been helping institutions get PoS exposure through our white-label and research services and today we’re extremely excited to announce the launch of OPUS — a multi-chain staking solution that will significantly speed up and scale an institution’s staking operations. The needs of any institution vary quite a bit and there aren’t many enterprise-ready staking solutions catering to them all. OPUS was designed after months of research and conversations with our existing clients and other crypto-friendly companies, keeping their needs at the center.
“Cryptoassets are becoming an integral part of the world’s financial system. They open the possibility for a more efficient and innovative economy. Staking cryptoassets allows participating in this revolution and earning strong returns with minimal risks. At Chorus One, we are grateful to be able to support institutions of all kinds to safely and effectively participate in the Proof-of-Stake economy.” — Brian Crain, Co-Founder and CEO, Chorus One
OPUS also follows industry-leading security standards and access to MEV rewards, the latter now being an important factor post the Merge. Here’s a quick overview of OPUS’ primary features -
Security is of paramount importance and one that’s non-negotiable. Hence, OPUS follows a range of security practices like authorizations/authentications using Open ID Connect (OIDC), double signing protection to prevent losses, and all private keys being stored in FIPS 140–2 compliant vaults. OPUS is also non-custodial meaning customers remain the sole possessors of withdrawal keys.
Every client would have a dedicated infrastructure with multi-region redundancy that would also allow them to increase or decrease validators as and when required, depending on the protocol. This is also supervised round-the-clock by our DevOps team for issues and real-time updates can be enabled on Telegram or Slack.
OPUS is designed to be chain-agnostic. Starting first with Ethereum, this will soon expand to other networks so you can use the same interface to interact with multiple networks.
MEV-Boost queries and outsources block-building to a network of block builders. The validators that run MEV-Boost on their nodes will earn maximum rewards that then increase the rewards of all OPUS users too. Since the rewards generated by the non-MEV-Boost validators would be substantially lower, it would be prudent for institutions to partner with solutions that already enable MEV rewards.
That’s not all. We have many exciting features in the pipeline that will be rolled out in the next few weeks. If you’re interested in exploring OPUS and knowing more, drop an email to staking@chorus.one
In September, we hosted Steakwallet-rebranded Omni in the first episode of our monthly Twitter Spaces series. Below are highlights of the 50-minute long Q&A, featuring Omni’s CEO Serafin Lion Engel, CTO Alex Harley, and Chorus One’s CCO Felix Lutsch as we explored the unique features of the Omni wallet and how to choose the right validator.
Q: Serafin and Alex, why don’t you first start with an introduction to Omni?
A: So Omni is what we like to call the next generation of wallet that makes using Web3 as easy as ever. It’s basically your one-stop shop for everything Web3. It’s a wallet where you can do anything you need to do in order to use Web3 all in one place and it’s fully self-custodial. So anything, from staking to liquid staking, to depositing, to yield vaults, or onto lending protocols like Aave to multi-chain NFT support, and now alternative bridges and swaps. You can hook up your Ledger… We support more than 25 protocols at this point, all major EVMs, non-EVMs, and Layer 2s alike. There’s a lot of heavy lifting going on under the hood in order to make it as seamless as it is, but we’re very proud of our UX. We think that’s really what differentiates us and we think it’s a very next generation experience for a multi-chain ecosystem. Yeah, that’s only in a nutshell.
Q: Alex, what are some of the other features on the app that folks right now must not be using or must not be knowing about?
A: So with this Omni release, we really chose features that we felt were very important to UX, to rally around. So obviously, there was a lot of work over the last few months getting this [Steakwallet] rebrand out the door, but we wanted to make sure it wasn’t just a rebrand and that it would be a totally new wallet experience too. I would say, in my opinion, the biggest feature we added was the ability to do trustless and non-custodial swaps and bridges. So we partnered up with DEX and bridge aggregators across a range of different networks to allow people to easily swap and trade assets from inside Omni. We view this as a key unlocker for users. One of the main problems we had for Steakwallet users, previously, is that we had all these amazing opportunities for things to do like depositing into Yearn or seamless staking. But if they had one asset, say FTM on Phantom but we had something amazing going on Polygon, it was impossible for them to actually access that. So adding that in the app for us is a total game changer right now, because we have this whole concept of exploring networks.
We have a dedicated Content Team in-house to bring the latest and greatest of each network right to your home screen. Now people can see something fun to do or interesting like a cool APY or something and swap from an asset they actually have to get to that. Right now, we’ve partnered with three different aggregators and we’ll be adding more in the coming months. Bespoke networks like Tezos, NEAR and some other L2s are coming up; people will be able to jump to those straight from their wallet.
The second thing we added was our Ledger support. And we’re pretty proud of this because we have total feature parity for every network. So you can actually use your Ledger with every network we support. You can even use it for wallet connect applications. So you can vote on snapshot for example, which is quite cool, via Omni wallet. And then the third and final big feature we added was our multi validator support. Historically, we just wanted to offer people what we perceived as like the best yield for a token.
And as we went down this journey, we found that there are many yields. For individual tokens, you can lend Aave on USDC, or you can deposit into Yearn, for example. Or maybe a better example is Proof-of-Stake gas tokens: You can often stake them. You can also lend them. So part of expanding the capabilities of any one token was of course diversifying yield opportunities, but also diversifying who you can stake with. We didn’t want to be so opinionated and force people to stake with our specific validator of choice. On Omni today, you can choose who you want to stake with. And of course, we show you all the information like voting weight and this kind of stuff so you can make educated decisions.
Q: We briefly spoke about the providers that you work with. So you have a bridging provider and you also mentioned Yearn, Aave, and also the multi-validator support. If someone is on Omni right now, they can choose the list of validators they want to stake with. Was that a conscious choice to provide a list of validators? How did you guys plan that out on Omni?
A: Yes, that was a conscious choice. We originally started with one trusted partner and we just got so much inbound interest. Same with these other features I mentioned — like the Ledger support, the bridging and swapping support. We received a ton of user feedback that these would be great features to add. Again, same with the multi validators stuff. We did not want to be so heavy-handed and force users to choose one validator. It’s a great thing from a network security perspective. People want to balance their stake for personal security in case of slashing events. For network security, we don’t want to stake too heavily with a single validator.
Now that we have this multi-validator feature, our setup is such that we still present to users an opinionated list of high quality validators, especially on certain networks. Phantom comes to mind, where there’s basically 100% slashing risk for delegated funds, and that’s not a position that we want to put users in where they could potentially, in the worst case, lose all of [their funds]. So we basically partner with validators who have slashing insurance. We want to recommend validators we feel are of high quality in this space, while also giving users, at the end of the day, the absolute choice so they can delegate to who they feel strongly for.
We don’t want to be a centralizing force in the Web3 stack and we want to give users as much choice as possible. So we always have safe defaults that we set that we think are maximizing safety and convenience, but also have a positive offset for the space at large.
Q: Right. Even from the perspective of decentralization, it’s very important to not have a single point or a single recommended validator for any particular service — which is why you also have this question of centralization and Proof-of-Stake and whatnot. Felix, what are the most important factors that a user may think of when they choose to stay with a particular validator? Is it the brand name? The security they offer? The community they have around them? What do you think is the most important factor?
A: I think there’s a lot of things that you could look at as a user if you’re looking at a validator. There are also different kinds of customer profiles depending on what you are interested in. You might choose your validator just based on that. Security is one. Say, you want to make sure your funds are safe, you would want to make sure the team that is running the validator has a secure setup — such as using different data centers, using state-of-the-art infrastructure. Of course, that might also not be that easy for you to figure out as a simple retail user. What people tend to do is to look at the track record of a validator: how have they performed on other networks or in the past? What other networks do they support? Who is working with them? By simply looking at a validator’s website, you can usually get a bunch of the information. I think many are also just driven by the brand — whatever that means. That can mean a lot of things for different people.
Some validators might be more involved in the community, helping you understand a bit more about the staking model of the network. Or, they might do other things for the network’s community that you would appreciate — such as contributions in terms of research, looking at what’s happening in the network, just keeping people up to date through a bunch of newsletters. There is deeper research on certain topics that might be of interest to you — be it MEV, liquid staking or whatever you’re interested in. Ultimately, one [of the ways a user may choose their validator] is because of the tool that the validator team is building. Open source stuff is often hard to fund, obviously because it’s open source and there’s maybe no business model attached to it. The validator can be a good party to build these kinds of things and have the business model around the delegations that it’s getting.
Sometimes, validators contribute to the code base of the network or build block explorers or other tools that help developers or users really interact with the network. So if you’re someone that has tokens, it makes sense for you to look at who you think contributes most to the network’s ecosystem at large and the adoption of it. Delegate to them and, ideally, also delegate to multiple validators if it’s possible [for security].
NB: This article is an abridged version of the conversation between Chorus One and Omni. For the full conversation, replay the Twitter Space here.
Axelar is a universal interoperability network, secured by delegated Proof-of-Stake using AXL, the native token of Axelar: in short, Axelar is a blockchain that connects blockchains. With Axelar, users will be able to use any network with just one wallet (e.g., use MetaMask to make trades on Osmosis). Axelar facilitates many-to-many connectivity and programmability at the network layer for interoperability by connecting to any blockchain via a ‘Gateway’ installed on the connected chain. Users send messages to a Gateway on a source chain, and validators in Axelar’s network sign those messages on a destination chain. Axelar leverages threshold encryption in tandem with its Proof-of-Stake consensus to deliver secure cross-chain communication. Axelar solves the single point-of-failure risks and user-experience issues that are apparent in pairwise bridges and in other interoperability networks, alike. Axelar’s interoperability network unlocks more than just cross-chain transfers; General Message Passing allows developers to perform cross-chain calls of any kind that sync state securely between dApps on various ecosystems. Essentially, the enhanced functionality of cross-chain dApps enabled by Axelar’s network results in a better user experience for all users on all chains. Axelar is valuable for developers because of how inherently programmable, composable, and flexible the network is and for users given the new use-cases it will unlock across chains. Ultimately, Axelar provides permissionless transactions and validation, decentralised security, many-to-many connectivity, and programmability that other interoperability networks cannot duplicate.
Axelar is the first fully permissionless and decentralised interoperability network. Axelar is an interoperability Hub that facilitates many-to-many connectivity and acts as an adaptor for any dApp to leverage in order to communicate securely with any dApp on any other blockchain that has a ‘Gateway’ available for Axelar to plug into. The permissionless aspect of Axelar enables any validator to join the decentralised network; unlike other interoperability networks, it is not gated. Axelar reduces the amount of connections found in existing interoperability solutions by acting as a ‘Hub’, whereby each blockchain only needs to connect to Axelar in order to communicate with any other blockchain connected to it as opposed to opening many connections to many blockchains. The fact that Axelar is a blockchain, itself, enhances interoperability capabilities because programmability is possible at the network layer. To expand, actions such as address routing become much more efficient: new chains are immediately accessible to all connected chains, creating compounding network effects. User experience is also improved: Axelar is able to create one-time deposit addresses on connected blockchains, duplicating the user onramps used by centralized exchanges.
A user sends a payload to an Axelar Gateway, which is deployed by Axelar in the native language of the source blockchain (e.g. Solidity in Ethereum). The payload is recognised by a relayer in Axelar’s network, which notifies Axelar validators that there is a payload that is ready to be collectively signed (e.g. a cross-chain transfer from a user). At this point, validators come to consensus on what should be done with the payload sent by the user that has reached the Gateway on the source chain (e.g. Ethereum). Validators unwrap the payload and collectively sign on what should be done with it and where to route it (e.g. what network to send the payload to). Axelar network uses a weighted threshold signature scheme that validators abide by, whereby each validator has a % of the overall shares needed to produce a signature that correlates to the amount of AXL (token of Axelar network) staked with them. For example, a gateway might require a threshold percentage of signatures in order to sign a payload. If validators constituting that threshold percentage of the overall stake in Axelar’s network execute signing on a payload, then consensus is reached that approves the payload to be executed on a destination chain. In this case, if it is a cross-chain transfer, then a payload can be executed on a destination chain that mints tokens representing the tokens locked-up on the source chain. However, Axelar’s network can facilitate interoperability interactions that are far more intricate than this. More on this later.
Axelar has a simple but elegant design. The most important element in a bridge comes down to who the owners are of smart contracts that receive cross-chain intent payloads. These owners are given custodial or execution responsibility. If a bridge is centralised, a user would send a payload to a designated signer or group of signers, which would custody and approve the message on the user’s behalf. This approach is known as “proof of authority,” in contradistinction to “proof of stake.” The problem with Proof-of-Authority systems is that a user has to trust these designated signers to behave appropriately and not maliciously. If a centralised group of signers steals or cheats the user — or mismanages their private keys and is hacked — a user can do nothing about it. Therefore, Axelar has created a decentralised and dynamic set of validators to custody or sign payloads from users in a way that is trust-minimised (i.e. a permissionless protocol and incentives provided by the AXL token enforce that parties are responsible for signing or custodying payloads via mechanisms such as cryptography, consensus and economics). Axelar uses threshold encryption, a decentralised network and slashing economics to ensure that all validators behave honestly and user intent is executed across chains securely, safely and correctly.
In general, Proof-of-Authority setups have resulted in hundreds of millions in funds lost to security breaches. The Axie Infinity (Ronin Bridge) hack is a recent, costly example. More decentralised approaches can solve the problem of risks encountered by entrusting a designated group with our intent to move across chains. However, thoughtful approaches are still needed. Wormhole was hacked due to an operational error: a code vulnerability was exposed on their GitHub before it was patched. LayerZero, a well-known decentralised bridge network, leaves critical security decisions up to the application developer and user. Nomad, another well-known project, puts safety behind liveness (if the network halts, transactions are not safe). Nomad recently suffered a multimillion-dollar hack due to a vulnerability left unaddressed in its codebase. Axelar code is rigorously and regularly reviewed by auditors; audits are published here. Axelar code is open-source; a multi-million-dollar bug-bounty program encourages white-hat developers to search for vulnerabilities. Loss-prevention measures are also enabled, including mandatory key rotations, and the ability to disconnect compromised chains quickly, set rate limits and cap transaction amounts.
Axelar solves the security problems that are apparent in other interoperability networks by leveraging threshold encryption and a Proof-of-Stake network for security and consensus whilst simultaneously solving the usability problems presented by pairwise bridges. The user barely has to lift a finger when an application they are interacting with leverages Axelar.
There are other high-quality solutions that match Axelar in terms of security, safety and usability such as Inter Blockchain Communication (IBC). However, IBC is restricted in that it requires extensive integration work to connect to blockchains outside of the ecosystem it was built for (Cosmos). Ultimately, Axelar is the premier solution that solves all interoperability problems faced by other solutions and is unmatched when it comes to security, usability and interconnectivity as Axelar can seamlessly connect to any type of blockchain, regardless of the underlying technology.
As mentioned earlier, Axelar can facilitate interoperability interactions that are far more intricate than just cross-chain transfers. Axelar opens up a multitude of possibilities for users to engage with different chains without having to leave their source chain. This is powerful to comprehend, given users can take actions cross-chain using tools familiar to them such as native wallets and currencies. Let’s dig in.
One example of what is made possible with Axelar’s network is a Cosmos user instantly being able to receive USDC to use on Osmosis from a centralised exchange such as Coinbase without needing to use Ethereum. As it stands right now, if a user has USDC on a centralised exchange and wants to withdraw it to a decentralised exchange, it is highly likely that a user will only be able to withdraw USDC to a network such as Ethereum. This is a terrible user experience for Cosmos users, who will need to receive USDC on Ethereum first, before bridging it to Osmosis. Not only is this an unnecessary amount of steps but a user will also need to purchase ETH in order to pay gas costs to move across chains. With the advent of Axelar (as well as Interchain Accounts), if a user provides a centralised exchange with an address on Ethereum that is being observed by Axelar validators on Ethereum, it will arrive on Osmosis without a user needing to take any extra actions or pay any extra fees. This is possible because validators in Axelar’s network observe payloads incoming into a Gateway (in this case on Ethereum) and the Axelar network understands how to translate it and route it cross-chain. Once a payload arrives on Ethereum, Axelar can create an address for a user on Osmosis to receive the USDC. As a blockchain connecting blockchains, Axelar can execute logic that enables multiple steps to be assembled into 1 for users to take actions cross-chain. In this example, Osmosis users will be able to withdraw from centralised exchanges in 1-step, even if a centralised exchange does not provide the optionality. This will unleash a new wave of liquidity into deFi apps and other decentralized applications, like Osmosis.
The power of Axelar’s network can also be leveraged by users outside the Cosmos ecosystem. For example, an Ethereum user that does not want to leave the comfort of the network can utilise Axelar to take actions on applications that exist outside of Ethereum. To elaborate, let’s say that a user wants to swap ETH for AVAX and then borrow USDC on Avalanche with AVAX as collateral, in a decentralised manner. Right now, a user would probably send ETH to a centralised exchange using MetaMask and pay fees in ETH, sell ETH for USDT/USDC on an exchange, buy AVAX with USDT/USDC in another transaction on an exchange, send the AVAX to an Avalanche wallet and pay fees in AVAX, navigate to a lending protocol front-end, deposit AVAX and pay AVAX fees with an Avalanche wallet and then borrow USDT on a lending protocol with an Avalanche wallet (paying another AVAX fee).
Axelar completely abstracts away these extra steps and payments by creating a sequence of instructions for the network to execute cross-chain on behalf of a user.
In this scenario, if a user was on Ethereum as a source chain, the user would use MetaMask to send intent to a Gateway connected to Axelar, alongside a payment of ETH that is requested by network services in order to execute the intent cross-chain. Axelar network then abstracts the payment flow: ETH is converted into AXL to pay validators and then into AVAX to pay fees on Avalanche. A user does not have to leave MetaMask, or Ethereum, or purchase any other currencies in order to transact on other chains. (Notably, this process may create deflationary effects in Axelar, as “change” from these conversions is either refunded to the user, or applied toward potential buyback-and-burn programs. More on this from Axelar Foundation, here). At this point, Axelar has done all of the work on behalf of the user and a user has successfully borrowed USDC on a lending protocol in Avalanche. Axelar opens up new possibilities for users to take cross-chain actions without needing to learn new tools or purchase new currencies to pay fees.
Axelar is a Proof-of-Stake network built with Cosmos SDK and Tendermint consensus. The AXL token is used to secure the decentralised network. For a refresher, stake is the value of a token that has been delegated to validators to secure a Byzantine system. The more stake (value) that has been delegated, and the more diverse the pool of token-holders and validators, the harder it is to attack the system. At this point, it is extremely unlikely for a validator to be malicious in any case given it would be explicitly risking a large sum of its own stake and implicitly risking its reputation in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Even in a scenario where the value at stake in AXL is less than the amount being transferred, validator collusion toward a malicious outcome is unlikely, given the explicit reward for doing so would likely be very low and reputation risk extremely high.
Holders of AXL have a strong incentive to delegate their AXL to a validator(s) to secure the network. Validators earn block rewards for successfully proposing new blocks that are verified by other validators in the network. A validator has more opportunity to propose blocks (and hence earn more rewards) if it has more stake delegated to it. Delegators are the ones that stand to benefit the most from block rewards because delegators earn the majority of it (often >90%), whilst validators take a commission for securing the network on behalf of them (i.e for. running the node that participates in the Axelar’s network consensus). If an AXL holder does not delegate, they risk being diluted as they will miss out on block rewards being received by other AXL stakers and validators.
Token-holders also have an incentive in the form of their long exposure to AXL, to delegate AXL to validators that they believe will secure the network in the best possible fashion. Delegators can review data on the full list of validators via the Axelar block explorer, Axelarscan, at axelarscan.io/validators. The more AXL that is staked with a validator, the more voting power a validator has (i.e. more chance of a validator being chosen to produce the next block) — but this does not lead to concentration of voting power, because Axelar has implemented quadratic voting. In short, quadratic voting means validators’ voting power is equivalent to the square root of their delegated stake. E.g., to get one vote, a validator would need 1 token; but to get 2 votes they would need 4; to get 3 votes, 9 tokens would be needed, and so on. The validator set of Axelar is limited, so AXL token-holders can play a direct role in ensuring the active validator set is performant and available by delegating to high-quality validators. Ideally, Axelar’s network is very decentralised whereby it would take not just a lot of stake to break liveness guarantees of the network but also a lot of validators (e.g. validator diversification).
Aside from securing Axelar’s network, AXL is also used for token-holders to participate in governance. Due to the fact that Axelar is built with Cosmos SDK, this means that all governance proposals are created and voted upon on-chain. The more AXL that a token-holder holds in the network, the more votes a token-holder has on governance proposals. For example, governance proposals might cover connecting new chains or a proposed upgrade that improves the features of Axelar’s network. However, it is not a requirement for AXL token-holders to participate in governance in Axelar. In networks built using Cosmos SDK, token-holders inherit the vote of the validators they delegate to if they do not vote themselves. If a user does not agree with the vote of a validator, the user always has the optionality to change the vote that was inherited from their validator. All in all, on-chain governance in Cosmos SDK chains runs smoother than most and is a great way for token-holders to actively participate and contribute to decentralised networks.
Finally, AXL is used to pay transaction fees to validators in Axelar’s network. For example, a user active on source-chain Ethereum that signals intent to take actions on destination-chain Avalanche would pay fees in ETH to Axelar’s Gateway on Ethereum. Axelar’s SDK provides services that observe the Gateways and then convert the ETH fee into AXL to pay Axelar validators and AVAX to pay Avalanche validators (all-the-while taking a cut for doing so). In essence, AXL is the fuel for validators to come to consensus on cross-chain intent. Demand for AXL comes from services such as Axelar SDK, which convert other currencies into AXL in order to pay validators for their work. Anyone can provide these services; they can even be handled manually by the user, if desired. The more usage Axelar’s network gets, the more currencies that are converted into AXL to pay validators, the more demand for AXL.
There are many reasons why Axelar is a valuable network. The network is valuable for developers, users and token-holders.
For developers, Axelar is useful due to the Turing-complete programmability the network facilitates, as well as the ability to compose functions cross-chain. Starting with composability, developers that build on top of Axelar can build one-click user experiences consisting of multiple components that interact with each other cross-chain. (Read more for an introduction to architecture approaches, when composing cross-chain.) For example, a developer might choose to build a yield optimiser, whereby a financial strategy reads yield of a certain asset across multiple chains and deploys more or less capital (rebalancing) on a connected chain in order to optimise yield for the next block. Axelar is also entirely programmable, which means that validators in Axelar’s network can take any action on behalf of a user cross-chain, no matter what it is. For example, a developer could choose to build a governance aggregator application whereby a validator set can vote on behalf of a user in a DAO, cross-chain, in the same direction as the majority vote (e.g. vote YES if majority vote is already YES). Related to programmability, Axelar network is Turing-complete, meaning any program that is created by developers can be run by the network, given enough memory and time. These features are possible because Axelar is a blockchain that connects blockchains, and cannot be duplicated by other interoperability networks. All in all, Axelar is the most customisable, flexible, programmable and composable interoperability network.
Users of Axelar can look forward to greater liquidity in their respective ecosystems, a better user experience, less transaction costs and new use-cases. Greater liquidity will be able to freely flow across blockchains that are connected to Axelar and as a result, users will have new assets to trade that were not available previously on their blockchains. There will be a better experience for users moving cross-chain as users will not need to hold multiple tokens across chains to take actions and not need to make separate transactions for each transaction. Any cross-chain transaction can be paid for with one token and instructions can be bundled by validators to execute atomically. Users will also be able to access new types of applications that exist on chains that are not native to the chain they currently interact with. For example, a user on Ethereum might be able to utilise a cross-chain AMM built on Axelar to swap Ethereum assets with assets on Avalanche. Axelar and its partners are already working with the largest dexes on multiple chains (Osmosis, a Cosmos project, is a notable example), who are building these cross-chain liquidity networks. Moreover, many of these projects are using Axelar’s unique functionality to build user onramps (such as one-time deposit addresses) that can rival centralised exchanges for ease-of-use, and welcome users seamlessly, regardless of what tokens they hold.
AXL is the fuel to the Axelar economy. The value of AXL comes from how it is used to secure the network, govern the network and pay node operators in the network to execute cross-chain intent. Holding AXL gives users a way to directly contribute to the sustainability and security of the network.
To conclude, Axelar is a decentralised and permissionless interoperability network built with Cosmos SDK that has a mixture of properties such as many-to-many connectivity, programmability, composability and Proof-of-Stake security that constitutes the most robust interoperability network available for users. Axelar will be secured by AXL, which is used to secure the Proof-of-Stake network, as well as for governance and payment for validators to execute cross-chain intent. Axelar will unlock a variety of use-cases that have not yet been seen, such as interacting cross-chain with other blockchains that might not speak the same language as the user’s source blockchain. For the first time, cross-chain user experience will be seamless as a flux of applications are being built on top of Axelar currently to leverage the profound properties of the interoperability network. Users who enter Web3 via one blockchain will easily access applications and assets on other blockchains, perhaps without even knowing they are doing so. Axelar solves problems of centralised bridges and interoperability networks to produce what can ultimately be argued as the safest, most secure and best cross-chain user experience that is available for users.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Galen Moore from Axelar for his review of this article.
Xavier Meegan is Research and Ventures Lead at Chorus One.
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Chorus One is one of the largest staking providers globally. We provide node infrastructure and closely work with over 30 Proof-of-Stake networks.
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Axelar delivers secure cross-chain communication for Web3, enabling dApp users to interact with any asset or application, on any chain, with 1 click.
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