Cross-chain protocol Wormhole has completed a $225 million financing round at a valuation of $2.5 billion, making it a unicorn in the blockchain industry.
On March 7th, Wormhole, with a valuation of $2.5 billion, announced the issuance of the token W and pledged to airdrop 617 million tokens to past users, accounting for 6% of the total supply. Nearly 400,000 wallets will receive the airdrop.
Wormhole was born out of a hackathon and was initially a token bridge between the Ethereum and Solana ecosystems. In August 2021, the protocol’s second version was launched, utilizing a Proof of Authority (PoA) guardian network as an oracle and an permissionless relay network for cross-chain message transmission.
As a decentralized cross-chain protocol, Wormhole combines smart contracts with encryption technology to ensure secure and reliable asset and data cross-chain transmission. Users can easily transfer assets through Wormhole, while developers gain a broader space for innovation to promote the expansion of the blockchain ecosystem and industry applications.
In November of last year, Wormhole completed a $225 million financing round at a valuation of $2.5 billion, becoming a unicorn in the blockchain industry.
Recently, ChainCatcher interviewed Dan Reecer, the Chief Operating Officer of Wormhole Foundation, shedding light on the mysterious aspects of Wormhole.
Dan Reecer, who graduated from the esteemed Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, joined the cryptocurrency field after accumulating four years of experience in healthcare brand marketing. He has been involved in the cryptocurrency industry for over five years, serving as the Chief Growth Officer of Acala, the Marketing Director of Wanchain, and leading growth projects at Web3 Foundation, making important contributions to the launch of Polkadot. Dan Reecer joined Wormhole Foundation in 2023 and continues to explore and practice cryptocurrency projects.
In addition to the announcement of the airdrop, Wormhole is also making new moves in promoting the adoption of Zero-Knowledge (ZK) technology. After funding Lurk Lab and Zpoken, Wormhole Foundation announced a collaboration with the Succinct team on February 15th to build an Ethereum ZK light client, aiming to decentralize message verification and enhance cross-chain composability and network security.
Furthermore, Wormhole has partnered with AMD in terms of hardware resources, with AMD providing enterprise-grade FPGA hardware accelerators to support the development of the Wormhole ecosystem.
ChainCatcher: Wormhole started as a token bridge between Ethereum and Solana and has evolved into a universal message protocol connecting multiple chains in the ecosystem. How did Wormhole gradually grow from a hackathon project to the current Wormhole protocol?
Dan Reecer: Since the start of the project funded by the foundation, Wormhole has made continuous breakthroughs in the cross-chain field. In 2020, to break the isolation between Solana and other mainstream networks, the Wormhole team developed the first version and successfully held the first Wormhole hackathon, involving collaboration from multiple teams to build cross-chain applications on the blockchain.
The core goal of the first version of Wormhole was to achieve interoperability between Ethereum and Solana.
Wormhole has made significant progress and now connects over 30 different blockchains. Wormhole recently achieved a milestone by transmitting 1 billion cross-chain messages through Wormhole.
Currently, over 200 applications have been built on the Wormhole platform, and thousands of developers use Wormhole for cross-chain transactions every day, enhancing the liquidity and user base of their applications.
ChainCatcher: Uniswap has chosen Wormhole as its primary cross-chain message protocol for its cross-chain deployment. What unique advantages does Wormhole’s cross-chain protocol have compared to other protocols?
Dan Reecer: Firstly, Wormhole has a wide coverage range for cross-chain, supporting 6 types of blockchain virtual machine execution environments, including Ethereum, Solana, Aptos, NEAR, Sui, and Algorand, and integrating them. This is one of the reasons why many projects choose Wormhole for cross-chain.
Secondly, Wormhole is 100% open source, with all code publicly available on GitHub, undergoing multiple audits and regular reviews to ensure security. Recently, we have hired a Chief Security Officer and collaborated with the Asymmetric Research team to focus on platform security.
In addition, unlike other cross-chain protocols that are typically controlled by two-party multisignature, Wormhole has a highly decentralized nature.
The core organizational structure of Wormhole is based on the Proof of Authority (PoA) mechanism, consisting of a group of trusted entities called Guardians. The Wormhole Guardian network consists of 19 members, including Chorus One, Everstake, Figment, and xLabs. Every message transmitted through Wormhole must be validated by 13 out of these 19 validators before being sent to another blockchain. Currently, all validators are within the governance system.
Furthermore, Wormhole closely focuses on developer needs and provides diverse products. Wormhole has five core products aimed at building a comprehensive interoperability platform rather than being limited to a single product.
For example, the Remote Queries used by Synthetix allow data to be extracted from any chain data source to another blockchain. Currently, this product is still in the testing phase.
Uniswap is using Wormhole for cross-chain governance, and Wormhole provides cross-chain governance information and data transmission services to Uniswap, ensuring consistency in governance deployment across various interoperability protocols.
ChainCatcher: Last month, Wormhole announced its ZK roadmap and plans to deploy ZK light client cross-chain infrastructure for multiple chains in the coming months. How will the cross-chain infrastructure field develop in the future? How do you think these new ZK light clients will change the current state of the blockchain industry and how will they drive Wormhole to achieve its long-term goals?
Dan Reecer: Wormhole’s team has always adhered to the core spirit of cryptocurrency and is actively working to widely apply zk technology to the Wormhole platform to reduce reliance on centralized factors.
Once zk technology is officially launched, developers will have two options for transmitting data or tokens: continue using the existing validator system or choose completely trustless zk technology to eliminate reliance on validators.
Wormhole values zk technology because it will effectively reduce Wormhole’s reliance on company trust and further promote decentralization. Through continuous technological innovation and optimization, Wormhole will provide developers with a more secure, efficient, and decentralized interoperability platform.
Wormhole has funded three teams: Lurk, Zpoken, and Succinct. Additionally, Wormhole has received hardware support from AMD in FPGA and GPU fields to optimize the speed and cost-effectiveness of zk technology implementation.
Wormhole plans to launch zk clients this year to achieve seamless interoperability between Ethereum and NEAR chains, among others.
ChainCatcher: Will Wormhole introduce a dedicated zk layer to manage these zk proofs transmitted between different chains, or will it choose specific chains to solve this problem?
Dan Reecer: Wormhole does not need to develop a dedicated zk layer for this purpose. Instead, Wormhole is developing zk-like clients that can deploy various technologies on different chains for seamless integration, without the need to develop underlying zk solutions like zkSync or Polygon chains.
Although zk is generally used for privacy protection, in the context of Wormhole, zk is used to reduce centralization trust and enhance decentralization.
ChainCatcher: In December of last year, the parallel EVM blockchain Monad announced a partnership with Wormhole to achieve technical integration. Could you provide more details about the collaboration between Wormhole and Monad and the impact this collaboration will bring?
Dan Reecer: Wormhole will attract users and liquidity for Monad, injecting vitality into its ecosystem. Users can easily cross-chain SOL from Solana to Monad through Wormhole and freely participate in any activities in the Monad ecosystem, including DeFi.
For Wormhole, this is not only a challenge but also an excellent opportunity to expand market share and transaction volume.
ChainCatcher: Will Wormhole expand its coverage to different types of projects, or will these projects only focus on message interoperability? Have you considered collaborating with larger ecosystems like Optimism or Arbitrum?
Dan Reecer: The current plan remains focused on interoperability, which is also one of the biggest opportunities in the entire industry.
Considering the exponential growth of blockchain numbers and the industry as a whole, bridging the gap between chains becomes crucial. It is undeniable that the world is moving towards a multi-chain environment, requiring a secure and trust-minimized cross-chain infrastructure to drive this expansion and promote the prosperity of the industry.
For users, the focus is not limited to the platform itself but on cross-chain needs.
Therefore, Wormhole’s focus has always been on building more products and seamlessly integrating them into a suite of tools. Currently, Wormhole is actively collaborating with application and blockchain developers, as well as token issuers for cross-chain transactions, to increase the number of covered applications, further expand the range of cross-chain or multi-chain tokens, and initiate community governance to jointly promote the development of the cross-chain ecosystem. This is the path Wormhole will continue to adhere to in the next 5 to 10 years.
ChainCatcher: In November of last year, Wormhole completed a $225 million financing round at a valuation of $2.5 billion. What are the plans after this round of financing? Additionally, the team behind Wormhole announced the establishment of Wormhole Labs. What considerations led to this?
Dan Reecer: Wormhole always places engineering and products at the core. With the development of the Wormhole ecosystem, multiple collaborative teams have gradually formed. Currently, Wormhole has the Foundation, Wormhole Labs, X Labs, and the security-focused Asymmetric Research team, which together form the core strength of Wormhole.
In terms of developers, Wormhole has provided various grants in hackathons such as Denver and Ethereum and will continue to participate in similar events to strengthen the developer ecosystem. Additionally, Wormhole is focused on recruiting top talent.
ChainCatcher: Wormhole has launched the Cross-Chain Ecology Fund and XGrant funding program. What are the specific criteria for selecting projects to fund? Are there plans to increase funding amounts in the future to support more promising projects?
Dan Reecer: X Grants are specifically designed for open-source projects in the Wormhole ecosystem, and the official website provides relevant funding criteria. Additionally, self-applications will be evaluated and screened by a dedicated team.
Wormhole is also collaborating with Borderless Capital to launch the Cross-Chain Ecosystem Fund, aiming to invest in project teams that can drive the development of the entire cross-chain ecosystem. These teams have been closely integrated with Wormhole from the beginning.
Furthermore, regarding the Wormhole Base Camp accelerator program operated by Outlier Ventures and funded by Borderless Capital, it focuses on supporting early-stage Web3 founders. Five startups have already been selected and will receive a $200,000 investment from Borderless Capital.
Wormhole is always committed to supporting the development of the entire cross-chain ecosystem. Whether the funding scale will be expanded requires further research and preparation.
ChainCatcher: With Bitcoin recently reaching new highs and the cryptocurrency market sentiment remaining high, will Wormhole accelerate the progress and development of certain projects?
Dan Reecer: Wormhole does not change its direction due to market fluctuations. Wormhole has been in development for over three years and has experienced market cycles. Wormhole focuses on its goals, releases new products, and improves existing ones.
Market cycles may cause some disturbances on social media, but Wormhole remains true to its mission and is committed to achieving it.