Frontier Integrates LI.FI's SDK | SushiXSwap Live | Lido on L2 | cBridge Fees Tuned-Up | Across' Referral Program & More!

Last Week In The Multi-Chain Ecosystem (18th to 24th July 2022)

Jul 25, 2022

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Bridge Updates

1) Frontier Wallet Integrates LI.FI’s SDK 🦎🧡

Frontier, a premier DeFi wallet, has integrated LI.FI’s SDK to launch its in-wallet Multichain Bridge. Frontier users can now move any assets across 15+ chains, 9+ Bridges, and 17+ DEXs supported by LI.FI — faster, cheaper, securely.

2) cBridge to Tune Up Fees 💡

On July 22 at 0:00 UTC, all 0% fee chain-token pairs on cBridge were tuned up from 0% to 0.02%. This change has been made in line with the spirit of CIP-10, which proposed “Improvements to the cBridge fee schedule and pricing curve”

3) Hashport Integrates DAI 👏🏻

Hashport network, a bridging protocol connecting Hedera and EVM chains, has integrated DAI. The presence of DAI on Hedera significantly improves the usability of the network’s DeFi ecosystem. This makes DAI the first multi-collateralized stablecoin available on Hedera.

4) Synthetix sUSD Bridge is Now Live ⚔️

Synthetix sUSD bridge is now live. Users can now move sUSD to/from Optimism to Ethereum Mainnet.

5) Across’ Referral Program is Now Live 🚀

Across launches the first stage of the Across token - Across’ Referral Program, a “bridge to earn” approach to airdrops. Every $1 of bridge fees users refer can earn significantly more than $1 of $ACX, the Across token.

6) Multichain Adjusts Transaction Fees 👏🏻

Multichain adjusts the cross-chain transaction fees from 22 July to provide a better liquidity experience. USDT cross-chain transaction fees to BNB chain, Polygon, and Avalanche will be adjusted from 0% to 0.01%. (Min. = 0.5 USDT and Max. = 1000 USDT)

Multi-Chain Ecosystem Updates

1) SushiXSwap Built on Stargate and LayerZero is now Live 🍣

Sushiswap introduces SushiXswap, a cross-chain AMM built on Stargate and LayerZero. Users can now transfer assets between 7 chains supported by Sushi.

2) Lido to Launch stETH on Layer 2 🌴

Lido is launching stETH on Layer 2, starting with Arbitrum and Optimism. Lido users will be able to stake on L2 Lido at lower fees and access more dApps. Lido will begin by supporting wstETH bridging and staking on L2s.

3) Avalanche Integrates Gamestar+ 🔺

Avalanche has integrated Gamestar+, an interactive streaming platform for classic games like Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Gamestar+ also plans to launch its GSTAR token on Avalanche — the token will be redeemable for NFTs and tradeable for other digital assets.

4) Thorchain BEP2/ERC20 Killswitch 🧐

Thorchain’s RUNE killswitch has begun — the process of retiring BEP2/ERC20 RUNE tokens. Thorchains aims to slowly reduce the 1:1 redemption rate with the ratio dropping every 6 seconds.

5) Proposal for Uniswap Fee Switch Temp Check 🦄

Voting has started on a proposal for "Temp Check: "Fee switch" activation for ETH/USDC & USDC/USDT" on Uniswap. Currently, all the fees go to LPs. If the proposal is successful, the fees will be split between LPs and UNI holders.

6) InterSwap Launched 🚀

InterSwap is a fully composable native asset cross-chain or omnichain AMM with unified liquidity built on the LayerZero Network. It allows users to perform cross-chain transactions for native assets without intermediaries in a single transaction.

What’s Popping on Twitter?

ZK tech has been around for a while. However, until now, we’ve had zk-rollups:

Loopring — a zk-Rollup L2 for trading and payment
StarkNet — a permissionless decentralized zk-rollup
Aztech — a privacy first zk-rollup

and other implementations of the zk tech:

Argent — a zk wallet solution
StarkEx — a standalone zk-rollup SaaS
dYdX — runs on a zk-rollup (StarkNet)

ZK-rollups are a crucial part of Ethereum’s scaling plans. They offer many benefits as they are much faster and cheaper than Ethereum L1.

While they’ve been around for a while and are theoretically very powerful, they’re also quite complex. As a result, it’s challenging for devs to build on them. Thus, everyone has been eagerly waiting for zk-EVM, and it’s finally here.

What is zk-EVM?

zk-EVM combines the benefits of two revolutionary technologies: zk and EVM. This way, it offers all the same benefits and security guarantees like a zk-rollup combined with the inherited properties from the EVM model.

The EVM-equivalence offers great flexibility because it allows devs to work in an environment they’re already comfortable with since Solidity is the core language. The ability to run arbitrary Solidity code on zk-tech makes zk-EVM an eagerly awaited solution, and it’s finally ready.

In the past week, we’ve seen three major announcements related to zk-EVM:

1. Polygon Hermez — open-sourced the code and plans to have a public testnet soon.

2. Scroll — released the pre-alpha version of Scroll for external testers.

3. zkSync — announced zkSync 2.0 with plans to release mainnet 2.0 in 100 days.

All these zkEVM solutions will offer users cheaper and faster transactions, improved security, more rollups, and a better user experience.

While there is much conjecture on Twitter about who was first and discussions around which approach is the best, we should take this opportunity to celebrate the development in the space and the progress in scaling Ethereum.

There’s still a long road ahead for the final products to be released and ready for use, but this is a significant step forward in scaling Ethereum. It’s fantastic to see great teams shipping such ground-breaking technology, and we couldn’t be more excited for the future!