Wormhole is one of the most widely used and known cross-chain bridges. The hub has proven resilient, despite going through one of the biggest exploits, losing $321M in 2022. Since then, Wormhole has grown its connection pairs and interchain features.
Wormhole Targets Developers Again
Developers are a scarce resource in the blockchain space. The best may create the next wave of successful projects. Wormhole and Borderless Capital are offering grants to developers who want to create cross-chain features and products.
The grant program is open for application now and will distribute a total of $50M in locked liquidity.
.@borderless_cap has launched a $50 million fund to onboard the next generation of Web3 applications.All builders, founders, and developers innovating cutting-edge apps, infrastructure, or tools that span multiple ecosystems are invited to apply. pic.twitter.com/G60JuSNtXI
— Wormhole (@wormhole) April 30, 2024
Wormhole aims to build a space where the end user can move seamlessly between any two chains, without extra steps or attention. Cross-chain tokens and identities also mean more opportunities for account abstraction, where a user does not need to create a new wallet for each chain.
Wormhole Introduces Native Cross-Chain Tokens
The seamless Wormhole technology means there are now tokens that can exist on several networks, with seamless transfers and locked liquidity. Wormhole itself recently launched its W token, available on some of the most high-profile Web3 networks.
Wormhole's W token is now natively multichain using the Wormhole Native Token Transfers (NTT) framework 💥Native W is now available in SPL format on @Solana and ERC20 format on @Ethereum, @arbitrum, @Optimism, and @buildonbase. pic.twitter.com/pwaJohYGXT
— Wormhole (@wormhole) April 25, 2024
Wormhole is also adding new tokens with cross-chain mechanisms. Some of the recent additions can move between Solana and Arbitrum, two of the most active chains for decentralized apps.
.@wormhole is bringing more interoperability to the Arbitrum ecosystem! 💙 https://t.co/r6JlDMxGjc
— Arbitrum (💙,🧡) (@arbitrum) April 29, 2024
The activity of Wormhole varies, but the protocol showed an inflow of transactions in Q1, 2024. In the past 90 days, Wormhole also went through activity spikes, with thousands of cross-chain transactions each day. At baseline, Wormhole handles around 2K transactions, based on DappRadar data.
The protocol retained its high credibility, especially after increasing security to avoid more exploits. As of May 1, the Portal bridge by Wormhole received more deposits than withdrawals and supports a reasonable level of baseline activity. Wormhole is used often to transfer different cross-chain versions of stablecoins like USDT, USDC, BUSD and others.
Wormhole Offers Staking for Native Token
One of the reasons for heightened activity is the launch of the W token. Wormhole partnered with DappRadar to further boost W token distribution. W token buyers can stake through DappRadar in a special program and receive passive returns.
The W token has been trading for only about a month and is still at the stage of early price discovery. W peaked right after its launch, reaching highs of $1.54. Since then, it has slid to its current price of $0.64, trading sideways for the past two weeks.
After the initial enthusiasm, W token’s trading volumes remain close to $200M per day, with $1.2M in liquidity for each 2% downward slippage.
After its launch, the W token also managed to defy the market slide, which pushed down major assets. W climbed while Bitcoin (BTC) slid toward the $60,000 barrier.
Wormhole’s W reached an all-time low at $0.46 and showed its capabilities to bounce and find a higher price range.
Extreme predictions see W breaking as high as $3 in the medium term, as more buyers redirect to the new asset.
$W Expensive? Overpriced? Probably.It is however showing quite a lot of strength the past 2 weeks while everything else has been getting rekt.Good to keep an eye on as it could easily squeeze higher upon a breakout.Best to wait for confirmation as always 🙂 pic.twitter.com/KiJkDUd19w
— Daan Crypto Trades (@DaanCrypto) May 1, 2024
A further slide for W may put the token in the accumulation zone, preparing for new attempts at trading higher. Some predictions view W as almost done with the slide after the launch. W was intended as a utility token within the ecosystem.
Wormhole Invests Back into Crypto Space
Wormhole is a hub for money to enter and flow through crypto space. The project itself is well-funded, raising $225M during a token sale in Q4, 2023. Wormhole is one of the projects to delay the creation of a token, surprising the markets with a late but very successful ICO. The bridge and cross-chain platform has been around for more than three years and is among the first tokenless projects to airdrop an asset.
On its side, Wormhole supported seven other projects like Curvance, NodeKit, Synonym Finance, Omega, Oyl, Zoth and Mayan.
