Wormhole (W)
History of Wormhole
Wormhole was founded by Saeed Badreg, Anthony Ramirez, and Tony Jin as a cross-chain protocol designed to facilitate interoperability and asset transfers among various blockchain networks. Initially launched by Jump Crypto, it served as a bridge primarily between Solana and Ethereum. With the introduction of Wormhole V2, it evolved into a comprehensive messaging protocol, supporting token transfers, cross-chain governance, and NFT transactions across multiple blockchains, including Terra and the BNB Smart Chain. In November 2023, Wormhole and Jump Crypto parted ways, and Wormhole secured $225 million in funding from notable investors such as Brevan Howard, Coinbase Ventures, Multicoin Capital, and Jump Crypto.
| Ticker | W |
| Category | Solana Ecosystem |
| Website | https://wormhole.com/ |
| @wormhole | |
| Telegram | wormholecrypto |
| Contract Addresses | |
|---|---|
| solana | 85...mQ Copied! |
| arbitrum-one | 0xb0...91Copied! |
| base | 0xb0...91Copied! |
| ethereum | 0xb0...91Copied! |
Development milestones
Wormhole has consistently advanced its technology to enhance blockchain communication. The transition from a simple token bridge to a general messaging protocol marked a significant milestone, providing developers with tools for building multi-chain applications. Its expansion to support additional blockchains like Terra and BNB Smart Chain illustrates its commitment to fostering a more interconnected blockchain ecosystem.
Overview of Wormhole
Wormhole is a cross-chain protocol that facilitates asset transfers and interoperability across different blockchain networks. Its architecture enables secure communication between platforms such as Ethereum, Solana, and Binance Smart Chain. By utilizing decentralized Guardian nodes, Wormhole ensures the integrity and security of its network, allowing developers to create cross-chain applications and services that enhance decentralized finance functionalities.
The Guardian Network
The Guardian Network serves as Wormhole's oracle component, maintaining the ecosystem's foundation. It is comprised of distributed nodes known as Guardians, who monitor blockchain states and sign messages independently. These signatures form multisigs, known as Verified Action Approvals (VAAs), representing a consensus within the network. There are 19 Guardians, including entities like Chorus One, P2P Validator, and Figment, who also oversee anomalies and smart contract data to ensure logical token movements.
Wormhole ZK
In April 2024, Wormhole introduced Wormhole ZK, integrating zero-knowledge technology to enhance protocol trust assumptions. This advancement allows for trustless verification of messages, improving security for multichain applications and users. It opens participation to all, fostering a collaborative network and enabling new blockchain networks to join the ecosystem without explicit consent. ZK technology supports multichain applications by unifying data access across blockchains and providing alternative message verification methods.
Wormhole Gateway
Wormhole Gateway, a Cosmos-SDK chain, connects non-native assets to the Cosmos ecosystem and consolidates liquidity across its chains. It enhances liquidity and user access by linking Ethereum and other platforms to Cosmos chains via an IBC-based liquidity router. Utilizing Cosmos SDK and CosmWasm, Gateway ensures seamless composability and adheres to the ICS-20 standard for IBC-native token bridging, promoting asset fungibility and compliance with Cosmos protocols.
Wormhole Queries
Wormhole Queries enables integrators to access guardian-attested on-chain data on demand. It provides a straightforward REST endpoint for initiating off-chain requests through a proxy, which forwards these requests to Guardians and gathers responses. The result, including encoded responses and Guardian signatures, can be verified on-chain.
Wormhole Connect
Wormhole Connect is a React widget that allows developers to integrate Wormhole-powered bridges into web applications. It supports various forms of bridging, including native asset and Portal-wrapped asset bridges. Connect enhances user experience by offering gas dropoff, providing extra native tokens for gas payments, and enabling gasless transactions with Connect relayers covering gas costs.
The W Token
On March 6, 2024, Wormhole announced the airdrop of its governance token, W, along with an eligibility checker for users. The W token has a maximum supply of 10 billion, with an initial supply of 1.8 billion tokens, representing 18% of the total.
Tokenomics
Of the 18% unlocked at the token generation event, the allocation is as follows:
- Community and Launch (11%): Includes tokens for airdrops, market making, and liquidity management.
- Ecosystem and Incubation (5%): Allocated to strategic contributors like community organizations and developers.
- Foundation Treasury (2%): Reserved for future protocol development initiatives, such as research and grants.
The remaining 82% of the token supply will be unlocked over the next four years following the token generation event.
Multichain governance
Wormhole, Tally, and ScopeLift are developing MultiGov, a pioneering multichain governance system for DAOs on Solana, Ethereum mainnet, and EVM L2s. MultiGov will allow W holders to propose, vote on, and execute governance decisions across supported chains, enhancing decentralized decision-making. This system enables DAOs to engage with token holders on any chain, simplifying participation in governance activities and extending user engagement across major ecosystems.
Supported blockchains
Wormhole supports a wide range of blockchain networks, including:
- Ethereum
- Solana
- Binance Smart Chain
- Cosmos Hub
- Polygon
- Avalanche
- Algorand
- Celo
- Fantom
- NEAR
- Moonbeam
- Karura
- Klaytn
- Terra
- Optimism
- Arbitrum
- Rootstock
- Stargaze
- Provenance
- Oasis
- Gnosis
- Injective
- Scroll
- Celestia
- Xlayer