In the past few years, blockchain technology and its applications have moved from living in a shadowy part of town to coming into the limelight of the city. Among the many that rose, Cardano has become a common name, which is also reflected in its facts, which show a nearly 198% growth rate of its total value locked (TVL).
The increasing user base has also resulted in an increase in daily app transactions of around 49%. The inherent features of higher scalability, low transaction fees, and high throughput have already made it profitable and now the latest announcement by Wanchain has even increased its prospects. Wanchain has been working on a blockchain bridging solution since 2018 to address the interoperability issues faced by most networks. They aim to make cross-chain functioning, which includes the transfer of assets, safe, cheap, and accessible for all. The Multichain hack gave insights into the chaos that could arise if these bridges, although important, are compromised in security. Wanchain Bridges offers their services to more than 25 networks and they have never been hacked.
Wanchain made the big announcement that they have deployed bridges for the Cardano network, which now connects the Cardano mainchain with other prominent networks like Ethereum, Polygon, Tron, Avalanche, Arbritrum, Bitcoin, Astar, and Optimism, among others. These bi-directional, non-custodial, and decentralized cross-chain bridges will ensure that network interoperability is increased, which will result in improved liquidity and a greater inflow of new assets. These bridges will facilitate the movement of Cardano native tokens like ADA, ERC-20 tokens, and other assets to and fro the Cardano chain, EVM, and non-EVM networks as well.
Now users and developers can use their ADA tokens to avail themselves of the services of the Ethereum ecosystem and use their apps as well. Along with these, users will also be able to transfer their BTC, ETH, WAN, USDC, USDT, and ADA tokens over the Cardano network. For the first time, Cardano users will be able to trade in USDC and USDT stablecoins.
Cardano runs on quite different technologies than other networks and thus the work for Wanchain was not easy. Cardano depends on the UTXO transaction model, is native to Bitcoin, and uses other technical specifications too, which leaves just a few bridging options for Cardano users. It developed the Haskell smart contracts and worked to support the Secp256k1 and Schnorr signatures.
Wanchain has been in talks with Input Output Global (IOG) since early 2022 regarding their plan to work on sidechains and develop an infrastructure to foster interoperability between Cardano mainchain and other networks. Wanchain announced its plans to finally put the bridge on the mainchain on February 1st, 2023.
Continuing the journey on August 1st, the network bridged two ADA tokens successfully, which reflected the cost-effective and user-friendly approach of Wanchain to introduce interoperability in the networks. On August 3rd, it successfully bridged the Tron and Cardano networks by moving 1 USDT token with no bridging fee and just 26.42 TRX as gas fees. To further showcase its ability, the bridge facilitated the successful transfer of 1 BTC from Bitcoin and 1 USDC from Arbitrum over the Cardano network.
The bridges have opened a gate of new possibilities for the Cardano network, enabling it to have more exposure to the ecosystem and attract more users and assets over its main chain. Such collaboration has also set an example for future projects that aim to increase the overall reach of DeFi into the mainstream and also project Cardano as one of the prominent Layer 1 player.