"Fragmentation" and "sense of separation" are believed to be the first impression many people have of the Ethereum L2 ecosystem.
As the L2 ecosystem and other EVM-compatible projects on the market become more and more numerous, the Ethereum ecosystem is becoming increasingly fragmented. Especially for users, in actual cross-chain operations, faced with bridges that have their own advantages, how to make the choice with the lowest cost and the best experience is undoubtedly a headache.
From this perspective, Holograph's full-chain token architecture for all forms of tokens (FT and NFT) in the pan-EVM ecosystem, while ensuring that the same contract address and token ID are maintained in all EVM environments, is worth mentioning and seems to be one of the biggest certainties in the direction of the pan-EVM ecosystem's full chain.
This article aims to focus on the increasingly popular "application chain" track, and combine the new exploration ideas of players such as Bifrost to get a glimpse into the deep code of how the next stage of the "application chain" may begin.
Holograph: A full-chain tokenization protocol for the pan-EVM system
According to statistics from DeFiLlama, as of June 8, 2024, the total locked value of the entire DeFi ecosystem exceeded US$106 billion, of which Ethereum, BNB Chain, Arbitrum and other pan-EVM networks attracted more than 70% of the funds, accounting for the largest share.
At the same time, within the pan-EVM system, the traffic originally concentrated on Ethereum has been divided up step by step, forming fragmented islands of value, and the number of EVM-compatible public chains and L2s continues to increase. Against this background, the internal cross-chain of the pan-EVM system will undoubtedly continue to be a rigid demand, and the fragmentation of cross-chain liquidity will be further aggravated.
As a full-chain tokenization protocol based on LayerZero, Holograph’s core vision is simple: to enable asset issuers to mint native, composable full-chain tokens for the pan-EVM system:
Unlike traditional packaged token cross-chain products, the biggest feature of Holograph is that it allows asset issuers to use unique and identical contract addresses and token IDs on all EVM blockchains, making them a clear identification feature of the token, while ensuring that the corresponding full-chain tokens have unified liquidity between different EVM-compatible blockchains.
This is mainly based on the cross-chain deployment architecture of the Holograph Genesis Contract - allowing all subsequent contracts to be derived from them, and they remain unchanged regardless of where the contract address is deployed, allowing the protocol to support all existing and future EVM chains.
For example, if you are an asset issuer and want to issue a full-chain asset called LIZI, you can directly use Holograph's universal token framework to issue a unique LIZI token on all EVM-compatible chains including Ethereum, BNB Chain, Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, etc.
LIZI has a unified contract address and ID name on all chains, and it is not only the same as the existing EVM chain. Even if new L2 or EVM-compatible chains are launched in the future, the unified name and token contract can be deployed directly on these new networks.
At the same time, tokens on different chains can be flexibly transferred at any time, and the total amount of the entire network is guaranteed to remain unchanged, and the balance of each chain can be changed instantly. The working principle behind it is also very simple:
In the process of cross-chain transfer, LIZI tokens are first burned on the source chain, and then a message is sent to the target chain through the message protocol, followed by the same number of tokens being resent to the same contract address. This unifies liquidity, eliminates slippage, and maintains interchangeability between blockchains.
In short, they keep the same contract address and token ID across all EVM environments, allowing for seamless transfer between different blockchains.
Pan-EVM full-chain token architecture
Holograph's full-chain token architecture for the pan-EVM system is also a complete asset issuance solution. The bottom-level consensus layer covers all existing EVM-compatible networks such as Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, Optimism, Base, etc., and future new EVM networks can also be integrated instantly and quickly.
Then, cross-chain information transmission is realized based on LayerZero, and on top of this is the tokenized liquidity layer of Holograph, which further provides a complete set of development tool support including Holograph SDK and Holograph CLI to asset issuers and demanders.
This means that any asset issuer can deploy the main protocol on Ethereum through Holograph, and then derive and deploy the same token contract on other EVM chains to complete seamless full-chain expansion.
Among them, the full-chain tokens minted based on Holograph also have unified liquidity. When users perform cross-chain operations, remote cross-chain message transmission will be realized through LayerZero, and the main protocol and other networks will be destroyed and re-minted synchronously, which also avoids the sense of fragmented liquidity. There will no longer be a split due to which chain the liquidity exists on.
At the same time, Holograph can provide corresponding customizable infrastructure for the creation, deployment and transfer of full-chain tokens, whether for existing project parties that have issued single-chain tokens or asset issuers that plan to launch full-chain tokens in the future:
Create standard full-chain tokens. Deploy native composable homogeneous tokens (FT) and non-homogeneous tokens (NFT), which are instantly destroyed on the source chain and then minted synchronously on the target chain;
Create custom full-chain tokens. Deploy new custom full-chain token implementations that can interoperate in unique ways across multiple EVM execution environments;
Modify existing tokens to full-chain tokens. By locking existing tokens on the source chain and then minting full-chain tokens on the target chain, the existing tokens become full-chain tokens;
In addition, as mentioned above, Holograph's deployment not only includes common homogeneous tokens, but also allows asset issuers to deploy NFT assets in full-chain form, which expands the scope of use cases to a wider range of games, RWAs, and memes, allowing asset issuers to create any type of programmable assets.
For example, traditional financial institutions can directly use Holograph to issue stablecoins, treasury bonds, and real estate tokenized products on commonly used chains such as Ethereum and Polygon to uniformly manage liquidity;
Game projects can also issue in-game assets with a full-chain architecture on different chains, making it convenient for users to switch between different blockchain networks freely;
Digital creators can freely choose the appropriate network to publish NFT artworks on the chain to promote their sales;
From an operational perspective, as ordinary users, we are almost unaware of the "cross-chain" process, and we can directly and instantly cross-chain assets on different chains.
Moreover, this process not only supports one chain in and one chain out, but also supports multiple chains in and one chain out, which can realize the cross-chain aggregation of users' multi-chain funds, which is also a cross-chain experience similar to that of centralized exchanges.
Investment, Financing and Data
In April, Holograph just completed a new round of strategic financing of US$3 million, led by Mechanism Capital and Selini Capital, with participation from Hal Press's Northrock Capital, Arca, Courtside Ventures and Hartmann Capital, bringing Holograph's total financing to US$11 million.
Since its launch in early 2023, Holograph has generated more than 14 million transactions, minted more than 10 million tokens using LayerZero, and sent more than 2.6 million messages. As of the time of writing, Holograph has become one of the leading full-chain applications in the LayerZero ecosystem.
Token Economics
On May 10, Holograph launched its native token HLG and announced its token economics, with a total supply of 10 billion and an initial circulation of 1.525 billion (accounting for 15.25%).
The specific token distribution is mainly divided into 6 parts: 25% of the total supply is allocated to the ecosystem and incubator, 23.4% is allocated to the core development team, 21.18% is allocated to strategic network participants, 15% is allocated to the foundation treasury, 10% is allocated to the community and Launch, and 5.42% is allocated to long-term consulting consultants.
At the same time, the overall distribution cycle of HLG is 48 months, which will last until May 2028. It is worth noting that the circulation volume of HLG will not exceed 50% before 2026, which means that the new selling pressure of HLG will be relatively stable in the next year and a half.
CoinGecko data shows that as of June 8, the circulating market value of HLG was only US$28 million, which is only about 25% of Stargate (STG), the leading cross-chain protocol in the LayerZero ecosystem. From this perspective, with the catalysis of LayerZero's coin issuance in the future, Holograph, as a sub-project of the ecosystem, cannot rule out capturing direct capital spillover dividends.
summary
For the Web3 world, the pan-EVM system not only currently occupies a mainstream position, but will continue to be the main axis of innovation in the foreseeable future.
Therefore, how to help pan-EVM products and users achieve seamless and secure asset transfer, especially ensuring that the cross-chain speed is fast enough, that there is sufficient cross-chain liquidity, that assets between multiple chains can be interoperable with one click, that they are secure enough, and so on, is the key to differentiated competition with massive cross-chain competitors.
This is also Holograph’s vision: it is striving to become the preferred trust-minimizing technology provider for the pan-EVM system, thereby simplifying the workload of building full-chain applications and building critical interoperability infrastructure for the future multi-chain world.
From this perspective, this is currently the most direct way to implement the full chain compared to other full-chain/cross-chain products. It is not ruled out that it will be a node for the pan-EVM system to break the current fragmentation of liquidity and truly reach out to users.
Narratives are sexy and the future is promising. Let’s wait and see whether “pan-EVM full-chain narrative” can truly usher in its own era this year.
