Introduction and Context

Web3 is in its infancy, despite massive growth in demand and usage. Novel consensus mechanisms and smart contract languages are supporting new decentralized applications that aim to serve the next billion people. Today, there exists strong and rapidly growing demand for cross-chain services between these innovative ecosystems.

L1 blockchains provide quite robust security guarantees, which are not conveyed by the much weaker security guarantees of the existing cross-chain infrastructure — one-to-one bridges that are often just multisigs between friends. There’s a serious scaling issue here: bilateral bridges between N networks will require N² bridges. A universal network is needed, handling routing, translation and security on an any-to-any basis between connected blockchains.

Today, there exists strong and rapidly growing demand for cross-chain services between these innovative ecosystems.

Contrast this with the current state of Web2. When we use an application like Zoom, we have to consider issues like participant count, buffering, screen sharing, etc. We do not have to think about the underlying networking involved. With call participants potentially spread around the world, there are many distinct networks that connect to enable us to communicate. Internet protocols like BGP link those networks to exchange data and overlay networks like content delivery networks (CDNs) provide the smooth experiences we expect. These protocols and service layers enable interoperability across networks, which is fundamental to the Web2 applications we use.

A Web3 overlay network, providing universal routing, translation and security, is necessary for Web3 applications to be as scalable and seamless as Web2 applications are today.

What is the Axelar network?

Axelar is the universal overlay network, securely connecting all blockchain ecosystems, applications, assets and users to deliver Web3 interoperability. Axelar is composed of a decentralized network of validators, secure gateway contracts, uniform translation, routing architecture, and a suite of software development kits (SDKs) and application programming interfaces (APIs) to enable composability between blockchains. This allows developers to build on the best platform for their use case, while being able to access users, assets and applications in every other ecosystem. Instead of pairwise cross-chain bridges, they can rely on a network architecture that provides a uniform code base and governance structure.

Axelar’s ultimate goal is to build the underlying infrastructure for onboarding the next billion people onto Web3. In order to achieve this goal, Axelar will:

1. Make it easy for blockchain developers to plug in and communicate with other chains.
2. Provide decentralized application (dApp) developers with cross-chain composability.
3. Allow users to interact seamlessly with applications across multiple ecosystems.

The Axelar SDKs provide a rich suite for developing Web3 applications, ensuring that developers have the tools they need for building. With these tools and APIs, developers can use the Axelar network and its SDKs to write dApps that can be easily deployed across all Axelar-connected ecosystems. In other words, Axelar distills cross-chain interoperability down to a simple set of API requests. This is absolutely central to adoption, as the developer experience around deploying Web3 applications must be like the experience today for Web2 developers, where the underlying networking and ecosystem-specific deployment considerations are largely abstracted away.

The developer experience around deploying Web3 applications must be like the experience today for Web2 developers.

How does it work?

The Axelar network has three key components across two functional layers.

A decentralized network

The first is the decentralized network itself, supported by a set of validators that are responsible for maintaining the network and executing transactions. The validators run the cross-chain gateway protocol, which is a multi-party cryptography overlay that sits on top of Layer 1 blockchains. They are responsible for performing read and write operations to gateway smart contracts deployed on connected external chains, voting and attesting to events on those chains.

Gateway smart contracts

The second are the gateways — smart contracts that provide the connectivity between the Axelar network and its interconnected Layer 1 blockchains. Validators monitor gateways for incoming transactions, which the validators READ. They then come to consensus on the validity of that transaction; once agreed, they WRITE to the destination chain’s gateway to execute the cross-chain transaction. The validators and gateways compose the core infrastructure layer.

Developer tools

Sitting on top of the validators and gateways are the APIs and SDKs (the libraries and tools that enable developers to access the Axelar network easily). This is the application-development layer that developers will use to compose across any two chains in a single hop, adding universal interoperability to their blockchains and applications. With Axelar, they can lock, unlock and transfer assets between any two addresses on any two blockchain platforms, execute cross-chain application triggers, and more generally handle any cross-chain requests.

This is the application-development layer that developers will use to compose across any two chains in a single hop.

How to use Axelar?

The Axelar Network has four main interaction points.

The first is the SDK described above, which developers will use to integrate their Web3 applications. To learn more about the Axelar SDK, please take a look at our developer documentation and join our Discord.

The second is to run a node or validator, participating in the core underlying processes that secure the network, and validating cross-chain transactions. Validator setup documentation can be found here.

The third is to lead or support the integration of a new blockchain with the Axelar Network. With each new blockchain that connects to the Axelar network, the potential value that Axelar can provide to developers and end-users grows exponentially. At the time of this writing, adding new blockchains is not openly available as a function for Axelar network users. However, this testnet demo shows the simplicity and developer-friendliness of the process, which can be completed in under 10 minutes.

The fourth is to use Axelar’s newly launched, decentralized cross-chain asset transfer application, Satellite. At the time of writing, Satellite supports transferring native Terra assets like Luna and UST between a set of both Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and non-EVM blockchains: Avalanche, Ethereum, Fantom, Moonbeam, Polygon and Terra. Support for other networks and assets will roll out over the coming weeks and months. Satellite demonstrates the potential seamlessness to the end-user: users may exchange assets across previously siloed ecosystems, without any change in user interface.

Looking to the Future

Over the last 20 years, we’ve seen the internet evolve into what it is today, with Web2 applications able to easily scale and serve users a rich, seamless experience. We are now embarking on a new journey. Web3 is in its infancy. It’s critical that developers be free to experiment on innovative programming languages, blockchain architectures and consensus mechanisms — without sacrificing access to users and liquidity.

When it began, Axelar was a bet on a multichain future. Today, that bet has been validated, and the multichain future has become the present day. However, ensuring that a multichain ecosystem can securely scale and support millions of users that transact billions of dollars is a difficult endeavor that requires carefully built architecture. Present-day pairwise solutions are not fit for the task.

Just as Akamai and the CDN created revolutionary opportunities in Web2, Axelar’s universal overlay network will create revolutionary opportunities in Web3.

Just as Akamai and the CDN created revolutionary opportunities in Web2, Axelar’s universal overlay network will create revolutionary opportunities in Web3, enabling secure and composable interoperability between all blockchain ecosystems. Just as Web2 developers can easily deploy their web applications to serve end-users regardless of what network they’re on, Axelar’s APIs will enable developers to easily deploy Web3 applications across any L1 blockchain, without having to learn the considerations specific to each one.

Axelar is the answer to the growing concern about cross-chain connectivity compromising the security guarantees of L1 blockchains. Axelar is the universal, decentralized transport layer, supported by permissionless validators and powered by Tendermint. It enables cross-chain applications to get away from the insecurity of ad-hoc bridges. As a universal overlay network, Axelar provides routing, translation and security between all blockchains, providing Web3 interoperability with maximum composability and security.

An Introduction to the Axelar Network was originally published in Axelar on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In advance of our mainnet launch in February, we held an AMA on Twitter with Pangolin Exchange. Pangolin is a community-driven, decentralized exchange (DEX) running on the Avalanche Network, which supports all Avalanche and Ethereum tokens. Pangolin recently integrated with Axelar, with the goal of leveraging our interoperability protocol to support deep liquidity pools for new trading pairs such as the native Cosmos cryptocurrency ATOM and TerraUSD (UST), a stablecoin built on the Terra blockchain.

During the AMA, Pangolin’s CEO Justin Trollip discussed how the DEX can now offer deep liquidity to users enabling them to easily transfer assets without relying on external bridges. This move to seamless interoperability not only significantly reinforces both the security and efficiency of the platform, but permits for new assets to become available on Pangolin much faster, without having to build heavy third-party solutions, leading to an improved UX and higher tolerance against downtime and attacks.

At the moment DEX’s need to offer users new and exciting tokens. As Justin put it: “The crypto industry is very much about people wanting to buy the new, sexy tokens and UST — as an example of my personal stablecoin of choice — and so it makes a lot of sense for us to have Axelar bringing that to the Avalanche ecosystem.” One of the highlights of bringing interoperability to Pangolin, for Justin, is the radical improvements in the user experience.

Accelerating Existing Processes

We are entering the multi-chain world in the blockchain industry. Many different blockchains are continually being developed, optimized for unique technical properties, target specific use-cases, or go after certain markets. With the proliferation of new networks, the growing need for bridges between them is becoming increasingly obvious to enable new use cases.

While multi-chain bridges exist, there are limitations to their interoperability. To highlight one example, we have the model used by Composable. “Composable requires liquidity on both sides of the bridge, meaning in order for the bridge to fully function there is a huge requirement that not only do we need liquidity in us as a DEX, but we also have to then seed or populate liquidity in a bridge which doesn’t make a lot of sense to us because it’s would fragment our liquidity,” Justin explained.

Speaking on the AMA, Georgios Vlachos, Co-founder of Axelar said “Developers will just integrate with the solution they want on the back-end. Application developers and asset developers are more likely to just pick one interoperability solution to integrate with and leverage full composability, so as to avoid fragmentation in the future.” Axelar works to make Layer-1 solutions less cumbersome by providing the necessary interoperability infrastructure and APIs to enable developers to build on the blockchain network of their choice while leveraging cross-chain contract calls, eliminating the multiple steps developers and users currently need to take.

Future Possibilities of Interoperability

We know that in order to entice new users and encourage mainstream adoption of blockchain, it’s critical that everyday tasks such as transferring assets between different blockchains become ‘one-step’ tasks. This offers huge potential for a range of new use cases that many can not yet fathom.

Seamless Interoperability has the potential to radically improve payment applications beyond decentralized exchanges. For instance, Justin spoke about how this could streamline the payment of Pangolin’s suppliers: “We pay a lot of our suppliers in Ethereum, however, they don’t accept USDC on Avalanche. So every pay cycle, we have to transfer money from our multisignature to swap into USD. We then have to bridge it across to Ethereum to then finally pay our suppliers, with Axelar this 10-step problem goes away.”

The future of exchange liquidity is dependent on giving users the ability to rely on a single storage and transaction application that they can use with ease across multiple blockchains. The possibilities that full interoperability brings to blockchain goes beyond simply swapping crypto assets but enables smart contracts to share information such as supply chain records, health records and certificates. Through its partnership with Axelar, Pangolin is demonstrating a first-mover advantage in a competitive DeFi ecosystem by being one of the first to enable its customers to transact and interact across multiple networks seamlessly.

You can listen back to the AMA between Axelar and Pangolin Exchange here, and follow Axelar and Pangolin on Twitter for more updates.

Pangolin AMA Recap: The Limitless Possibility of Interoperability was originally published in Axelar on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Today we are proud to announce the launch of Satellite, one of the first ecosystem applications powered by the Axelar Network. Satellite is a decentralized cross-chain asset transfer application, which enables users to transfer assets they hold on a source chain to an address on a different destination chain.

Upon launch, Satellite will support the transfer of native Terra assets such as LUNA and UST between several EVM and non-EVM chains such as Terra, Avalanche, Polygon, Ethereum and Fantom, with Moonbeam added shortly thereafter. Multiple networks and assets will be added in the coming weeks and months.

Satellite is the first app to demonstrate that Axelar connects all Cosmos chains via IBC and its GCP protocol with multiple ecosystems. Axelar serves as the translation layer that allows Cosmos assets to flow freely to all Axelar-interconnected networks and back. Axelar supports routing, finalizing and executing transactions in different “languages”.

Why Satellite?

Web3 is growing. Today there are more blockchains, assets, decentralized applications and users than ever before. According to Electric Capital’s Annual Developer Report, 34,000 new developers began contributing to blockchain projects in 2021 — the largest single year increase ever.

As the ecosystem grows, the infrastructure to support this influx of talent, innovation, energy and capital must develop as well.

We built Satellite to connect this growing ecosystem, to provide end users with a simpler, more decentralized transfer experience and to demonstrate to developers what the Axelar Network is capable of.

How to Use Satellite

Our aim is to provide users with a simple, streamlined, cross-chain transfer experience.

Please review the documentation we have created in the links below before using Satellite.

Read the Official Tutorial Post

With any new software, there could be bugs and unforeseen edge cases the developers did not account for. Be sure to exercise caution and test-transfer before executing larger sum transfers.

If you run into issues, please check the support icon in the bottom right corner of the screen. We will do our best to help you if you run into any issues.

Transaction Fees

There are fees required to process cross-chain asset transfers. Users pay the fee on the source chain they are sending from plus 0.1% of the asset transferred is assessed to cover the fees on all other chains (Axelar network / destination chain / relay infrastructure costs, etc.).

There is a minimum transfer amount that is different depending on the network users are transferring assets to / from.

Anyone Can Build On Axelar

Satellite is just the start. Soon, developers will be able to connect their applications to Axelar’s decentralized network through an API, gaining access to every other network connected to Axelar and the assets and users on those networks. Satellite was created as an example application using the API to execute cross-chain asset transfers.

Satellite’s code will be open sourced. API documentation, developer tools and an SDK are currently in development to make it easy to interact with the network. We welcome and encourage developers to build their own cross-chain asset transfer applications.

If you have an idea you would like to explore with Axelar, please submit an application to the Ecosystem Developer Program.

Start exploring the testnet here.

How Axelar Processes Cross-Chain Transfers

It should be noted, that when Axelar is used to execute cross-chain transfers, the assets are transferred from the source chain through a gateway smart contract, which is monitored by a decentralized group of validators. When a transaction occurs, the validators monitoring the gateway execute a read request to the gateway.

Then the validators use a multi-party consensus protocol to agree upon the state of the transfer. Upon agreement, the validators then execute a write request to the gateway contract for the destination chain that the funds are being transferred to. Again, multi-party consensus takes place, and upon completion, the funds are transferred to the destination address provided by the user.

Announcing The Launch of Satellite was originally published in Axelar on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

At the time of this writing, Axelar supports nearly two dozen blockchains across EVM and Cosmos-based ecosystems, and the list of supported assets and blockchains is expected to grow.

Whether you are going from a Cosmos-based chain to EVM or vice versa, the flow for token transfers through Satellite remains the same:

Prerequisites to make asset transfers using Satellite

• Chrome desktop browser with the Keplr and MetaMask wallet extensions (quick note on this below).
• Funds to cover transaction fees generated in transferring assets from your source chain.
• For transferring assets from an EVM chain: A MetaMask wallet connected to the desired EVM chain with native tokens in that chain to cover transaction fees.
• For transferring assets from a Cosmos-based chain: Enough native tokens in that chain to cover transaction fees.

If there are issues at any point, use the support button on the bottom right corner of the Satellite app for assistance.

Quick note on the Keplr Wallet integration

Our first set of supported chains/assets includes transferring funds on a Cosmos-based chain to/from EVM chains. One of the steps in our app for transactions that originate from the Cosmos universe will involve an IBC transfer from a funded Keplr wallet to a one-time Axelar deposit address.

The universe for IBC transfers is ever-growing, and we have found that market-wide options to do that are fairly limited at the moment. So we built this function into the app, with help from our friends at Keplr.

You can easily connect to all of our supported wallets from the top-right of the webapp:

Let’s begin a Terra >> EVM flow!

First, visit the Satellite app

Prefer to watch a video tutorial?

Make your source/destination chain selections

Use the Top Flows icon in the top right to prefill the entry fields with Source Chain, Asset, and Destination Chain information, or manually select the source/destination chains and asset to transfer. Then send the amount you would like to transfer.

A small table will appear that shows info on:

• Relayer Gas Fees. These fees cover the cost for our network and services to relay the transaction from source to destination chains.
• How long we expect the entire flow to take.
• (If applicable): a maximum transfer amount.

Next, enter the destination address to receive the transferred tokens on the destination chain. Optionally, you can autofill the destination address with your connected wallet; Keplr for Cosmos-based chains and Metamask for EVM chains.

Note on Transaction Fees and Minimum Deposit Amounts:

• There is a fee on all transactions made through the network. The amount of the fee is dependent on the selected source chain, destination chain, and asset. In our example, the fee for the transfer of axlUSDC in our Osmosis to Avalanche transaction above will be 1.5 axlUSDC. The webapp will only let you initiate a transaction if the transfer amount is greater than this fee.
• Additionally, you will need to ensure there are funds on the source chain (in the form of native tokens) to pay for transaction fees to that chain. (Pro Tip: If the transferred tokens need to be brought back to the source chain at a later time, you will also need funds on the destination chain to pay for transaction fees on the way back).
• Double check that the destination address is correct, or the funds will be lost.

Make your deposit!

After initiating the asset transfer, the Axelar Network will generate a one-time deposit address, where the tokens to be transferred will be deposited.

In our example above, the generated address will be an Axelar Network (not Osmosis) address. At this stage, you will need to send your deposit through an IBC transfer from your Terra address.

Good news! This can be done directly within the Satellite application, which facilitates the IBC transfer through your connected Keplr wallet.

So if you already have either wallet with a funded Osmosis account, you’re good to go. Otherwise, download the extension and either create a new account and send OSMO funds to your new account, or import an Osmosis account you already have into the wallet.

Once a deposit address is generated, Step 2 of the transaction status window appears, and you will be prompted to enter a deposit:

Then make your deposit through Keplr; a Keplr transaction window will appear that prompts you to approve the deposit.

Sit back and relax

Axelar Network will then confirm the deposit and transfer the funds to the destination address provided on Avalanche.

In steps 2 and 3, Satellite provides helpful links to external block explorers for your deposit tx on the source chain (on step 2) and your token balance on the destination chain (on step 3). For transfers to EVM chains, Satellite also provides a link in step 3 to add the token to your MetaMask wallet extension.

Once this is complete, the transferred tokens can be viewed on MetaMask… and that’s it!

Note: The axlUSDC that is sent to Avalanche will appear in the form of wrapped axlUSDC tokens on the Avalanche chain. See the Appendix for how to find the right token contract for axlUSDC on Avalanche and how to import it into your MetaMask account so you can see the transferred tokens.

Let’s go the other way: EVM >> Osmosis

The Satellite app also allows for transfer flows in the reverse direction! The steps are largely repetitive of the above, but there are a few differences to highlight when bringing these wrapped tokens back to Osmosis.

Entering your destination address

Similar to the Osmosis >> EVM flow, you can optionally elect to autopopulate a destination address from a connected wallet for the EVM >> Osmosis flow. In this case, you will autopopulate your Osmosis address from your connected Keplr wallet.

Making your EVM deposit

In the Osmosis >> EVM flow, you will recall in the 3-step transaction status section that Step 2 required you to make a deposit. It is no different here for the EVM >> Osmosis case, except the deposit address generated is in fact an Avalanche deposit address.

The deposit can be made from your MetaMask or you can make that deposit directly from Satellite through our MetaMask integration. However, if you are making the deposit from outside of Satellite, make sure you are depositing Axelar wrapped axlUSDC tokens, as depositing assets that are not Axelar wrapped could result in the loss of those funds.

An info popup with a link to all our token contract addresses appears every time a transaction is initiated from an EVM chain:

The rest of the process is similar to the previous flow. That’s it!

Transaction history

Any any time, you can query Axelarscan for historical transactions made through Satellite. A link is also provided through the Support button:

Technical support

If you run into issues or want to discuss any feedback, you have a few options

• We have a thriving community of users and moderators on Discord. Feel free to join and engage in the conversation in #satellite.
• On rare occasions, our automated microservices do not detect your deposit and a manual deposit confirmation has to be made. The Deposit Recovery Tool is a quick self-help way for you to push that along without the need to reach out for support.
• If you require technical support, you can file a Zendesk ticket.

Appendix: Adding token contracts on EVM chains

First, add the EVM chain to MetaMask, if it does not already exist. In MetaMask, click the networks dropdown, then Add network.

Enter the network information, which can be found online in MetaMask’s add a network fields. For example, for Avalanche mainnet:

Save the network. With the EVM chain connected, add the Axelar wrapped axlUSDC tokens on the EVM chain to MetaMask. Go to the Assets tab and click Import Tokens.

To add the token, first find the contract address using the Axelar Mainnet Address Page. Find the address of the relevant token, in this case, Avalanche axlUSDC token address. Copy this address into the Metamask Token Contract Address field. The remaining fields should be filled in automatically, and the token can be added.

The balance should display the newly transferred tokens.

Token transfers between EVM <> Cosmos-based chains using Satellite was originally published in Axelar on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

(Archived email newsletter from January 11th, 2022)

Today, we are proud to announce that Axelar is taking another step forward in our mission to connect Web3.

Over a year of hard work by the team and our partners has gone into developing the network. While we are just getting started, this is a major milestone that we are incredibly excited to share.
Announcement Below 👇

Axelar Begins Rollout of Public Mainnet Launch for February 2022, Bringing Decentralized Interoperability to Ethereum, Avalanche, and Terra

• Developers will be able to build interoperable apps on Axelar using new APIs and the Axelar SDK
• Axelar’s first open-source sample application, Satellite, will allow retail users to transfer assets between integrated blockchain networks

11 January 2022 — Axelar, the universal interoperability network connecting all blockchain ecosystems, applications, assets, and users, has announced that its public mainnet will be fully rolled out in February 2022, following a series of scheduled, continuous updates in the coming month. When the rollout phase is complete and the network is launched, Axelar’s interoperability protocol will connect and enable asset transfers between leading blockchain networks including Ethereum, Terra, Moonbeam, Fantom, and Avalanche.

Sergey Gorbunov, CEO and Co-founder of Axelar, commented: “From February, Axelar’s mainnet will universally and securely connect multiple autonomous blockchain ecosystems, providing critical infrastructure for Web3. Developers and their decentralized applications will be able to leverage Axelar to unlock the full potential of multiple ecosystems, scale their applications, and reach wider distribution. Our ultimate goal is to allow builders and users to interact and build on top of any blockchain network satisfying their requirements while ensuring composability and information flow with all other ecosystems and users. This mainnet launch is only the beginning, with continued improvements and developments around the corner for our network.”

From the launch of the Axelar mainnet, developers will be invited to build directly on top of the Axelar protocol through the unique APIs and the Axelar Software Development Kit (SDK), which will become available in February 2022. Axelar will also release a sample application, Satellite, to facilitate the seamless transfer of assets between the Ethereum, Terra and Avalanche ecosystems. Axelar’s Satellite dApp will provide an immediate avenue for cross-chain asset transfers for end-users, while also offering an insight into the kinds of dApps that developers will be able to build.

While in testnet, Axelar announced integrations with Avalanche, Polygon, Moonbeam, Polkadot, Cosmos, Pangolin Exchange, and others. These testnet integrations, along with other specific use cases, will also launch onto Axelar’s mainnet throughout 2022.

Do Kwon, Founder and CEO of Terraform Labs, said: “Axelar has built a highly impressive solution that empowers developers to build on the blockchain networks that directly fit their goals and needs while providing an easy-to-use platform suitable for any programming language. Even now, at the beginning of their journey, it’s patently clear that Axelar’s universal interoperability network will have a significant impact on how blockchain ecosystems communicate and interact. It is technology like this that will ultimately enable blockchain and web3 to reach mainstream adoption.”

Derek Yoo, CEO of Moonbeam, said: “Blockchains are islands by default which has historically forced developers into monochain development patterns. But we are at the beginning of a big shift towards multichain web3 architectures. Axelar’s interoperability network provides developers with standardized infrastructure and tools to build dapps that can span assets and specialized functionality across disparate blockchain domains. Given the excellent team and technology, I expect Axelar to play a significant and foundational role across a wide variety of interoperability scenarios, helping developers scale and extend the reach of their applications.”

This announcement follows a $25m Series A raise in 2021 led by Polychain Capital, and additional strategic funding from investors including Coinbase; Dragonfly Capital; Binance; Galaxy; and SushiSwap’s co-founder 0xMaki, among others. The launch of the Axelar mainnet in February will be accompanied by the issuance of Axelar’s utility token, AXL, by the Axelar Foundation. AXL will be used to power transactions on the Axelar Network.

###

About Axelar
Axelar is building a decentralized network and tools that connect users, assets, and dApp across multiple blockchain ecosystems. The network empowers developers to build on the best platform for their needs while leveraging the Axelar stack to unlock cross-chain composability and liquidity. Axelar Network consists of a protocol suite, tools, and APIs, designed to break down the barriers to cross-chain communication. Powered by a decentralized open network of validators, anyone can join the network, use it and build on it. The Axelar Network provides a uniform solution to cross-chain communication, allowing dApps to integrate with the full blockchain ecosystem. Developed by the founding team members of Algorand, Axelar’s co-founders are award-winning graduates of MIT, where they received notable recognition as part of their graduate studies.

For more information, visit axelar.network, or follow us on Twitter at @axelarcore, or LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/axelar/about/

For Media Enquiries
Kelly Earley
kelly.earley@wachsman.com
+353 87 232 1670

VIEW THE ORIGINAL ANNOUNCEMENT

LEARN MORE

Axelar will host a Community Call on Wednesday, January 12th at 11 AM Eastern to review this announcement and provide more context around the Mainnet rollout.

The call will be recorded and include a chat function for questions from the community.

JOIN THE COMMUNITY CALL

New Community Video

Need a refresher on what Axelar is building? Watch this new explainer video (available in both French and English) produced by the team at Journal Du Coin.
(watch-FR / watch-EN)

Axelar is Hiring!

Join us and build the future of web3. We are currently hiring in engineering, business development, design, community and marketing.

View Open Positions

Community Channels

As Axelar continues to grow, we are happy to now offer community run Telegram channels in more than 15 different languages. Find the right one for you in our Community Directory.

Website | Twitter | Discord | Telegram | Medium | LinkedIn | YouTube | Forum

Axelar Newsletter — Mainnet Rollout Begins Announcement was originally published in Axelar on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As 2021 comes to a close, this month’s newsletter recaps key milestones from the year and shares some of the latest updates from the Axelar team.

What We’ve Built in 2021

A Decentralized Network, Protocols, APIs

Axelar is on a mission to connect web3.
Over the course of 2021, we have made great strides in laying the foundation for the Axelar Platform, a universal interoperability platform that connects all blockchains through a decentralized network and an SDK of protocols and APIs.

Using the network and SDK developers can efficiently integrate their networks and applications across all blockchain ecosystems, creating greater access to users, assets, liquidity and other applications.

Axelar Enables:

• Liquidity sharing across chains
• Composability of applications across all blockchain ecosystems via APIs
• Developers to build on any network & connect to every network
• End users with access any app on any network with any asset

Want to learn more?
Axelar Co-Founder Georgios Vlachos dives deep into use cases with Justin Trollip, CEO of Pangolin DEX and an early Axelar partner.
Listen to the AMA here.

Axelar is Hiring!

View Open Positions

Community Engagement & Growth

We’ve seen amazing community engagement and growth this year for a project that is still pre-launch. Thank you for your interest and engagement over the year. We cannot wait to share what we have in store for 2022.

This year, we launched Axelar’s Testnet for developers and the Quantum Community Program non-technical community members. Additionally members of our community launched their own education hub — the Axelar Academy.

Axelar’s social and community channels have surged from where we started. Most notably our Discord server (which only began in August) and Twitter follower counts are closely matched with each other at just over 16k followers. We are proud to already have a truly global community, and we’re just getting started.

Toronto Bootcamp

In early December, much of the team traveled from across the globe to convene in Toronto for 10 days of development, planning and team building. After a year of working remotely, this was the first time many of the team met in-person.

While there, we hit some exciting new milestones with the Testnet. Most importantly, the process for onboarding new blockchains to the network has become highly efficient, and can be accomplished with just a few commands in a few minutes. You can read more about Testnet updates here.

Interviews & AMAs
Over the past month, we have hosted several interviews and AMAs with blockchain educators like Chjango Unchained, Cryptocito and Journal du Coin, partners like Pangolin, as well as with our own team covering topics like the Testnet and most recently, Network Rewards and Fee parameters.

In-Person Community Meetup

While the team was in Toronto, we hosted a Blockchain meetup event to introduce the local community to what we’re aiming to achieve with Axelar. The Toronto blockchain community turned out for a night of education, conversation and fun! Thanks local blockchain groups Bitcoin Bay and Blockchain Developers United for your support!

Community Channels

As Axelar continues to grow, we are happy to now offer community run Telegram channels in more than 15 different languages. Find the right one for you in our Community Directory.

Careers

Axelar is hiring for technical and non-technical roles!
Check out our careers page here to apply.

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Axelar Newsletter — December Edition was originally published in Axelar on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Last week, a dozen members of the Axelar team traveled from across the globe to meet in Toronto, Canada for 10 days of intense development.

The objectives of the gathering were simple: deploy a code-complete testnet and scale the number of supported integrations on the testnet. For most, it was the first time meeting in person due to the remote nature of our work and the travel restrictions COVID has created over the last two years. Nevertheless, the team fell right to work, finalizing a number of enhancements to the testnet, conducting tests, hosting an in-person meetup for the local blockchain community, and hitting some new testnet milestones we felt are worth sharing.

Today, there are:

• 800+ testnet participants, with more being added each week
• 1190+ testnet exercises submitted
• 79 registered validators, with multiple validators running multiple chains
• 6 networks actively being tested (Terra, Ethereum, Polygon, Avalanche, Moonbeam, Fantom)
• 2 security audits running (NCC Group and Oak Security) with 1 (CURE53) about to begin

Network Updates:

Based on feedback from the last testnet iteration, a number of network parameters have been fine-tuned. For instance, we increased the signblock interval duration that will allow validators to perform maintenance and onboard more chains without penalties on the network. The signblock interval duration is now being increased to two days. Additional improvements include the addition of recovery and upgrade mechanisms on the network and smart contracts, spinning up of microservices performing various functions on the network (i.e. relaying across chains), and other optimizations.

Key Question: Can we integrate a new chain in a matter of minutes?

Answer: Yes, we can!

From the beginning, one of the core system principles that we set out to achieve was to allow seamless integration of new chains, regardless of their consensus protocols.

In the space of one hour, on the first day of our team onsite, a single member of our development team added and activated all six blockchain networks to our testnet instance!

Our goal is to make this a permissionless process, in which any blockchain that wants to connect to the network may do so through the following steps:

1. Enough validators must register RPC endpoints to vote on events from the new chain. This is pretty straightforward and the process doesn’t assume availability of light clients or any specific logic around the consensus.

2. A small set of chain registration commands must be executed on the network.

By following these steps, the new blockchain is connected to the Axelar Network and thus all other previously connected blockchains. This design has allowed us to make integrations to both Layer 1s like Avalanche and Fantom, Layer 2s like Polygon, as well as Polkadot Parachains.

It is important to note that these additions can be added on a live network without the need to reset it.

Axelar network is an end-to-end platform for interoperability development. Various components (multi-party protocols, finality gadgets, incentives) can be leveraged by anyone to register new chains and scale interoperability across the ecosystem. In the coming weeks the team will evaluate testnet validators on their responsiveness, the number of chains they support, and open up more exercises on the network.

Stay tuned for future updates!

State of the Testnet — December 2021 was originally published in Axelar on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The goals of the Axelar Academy are twofold: to build a community run repository of accessible and open resources, allowing anyone to easily gain a complete understanding of the network, as well as to showcase the top submissions from the Quantum Community Program.

By submitting your original work to the Quantum Community Program, you’ll not only have the chance to be featured on the Axelar Academy but also the opportunity to be rewarded as well! You can read the full announcement post here.

Do you have an idea for a post? Is there a video you think would be perfect for the homepage? We would love to see it! All eligible members who wish to participate can send submissions through one simple form, found here.

As Axelar continues to expand, so will the Academy! While the Community Program will run for a limited time, the Axelar Academy will be a permanent hub. From deep dives into Axelar’s cryptography to how the decentralized validator set helps power the network, the resources on the Academy will constantly be updated and expanded.

Other ways to get involved with Axelar

Learn more about the network by reading through our Medium posts and catching up on our YouTube channel.

Stay up to date with the latest news and announcements by joining our Discord and Telegram and following us on Twitter.

And lastly, Axelar is hiring! Apply to join an amazing team in building the future of interoperability.

Introducing the Axelar Academy was originally published in Axelar on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Participants in Axelar’s Quantum Community Program do not need to be technical! We have an exciting call for submissions centred around content creation that allow ambitious, non-technical members to participate and contribute.

Program Breakdown:

The first phase of the program will be focused on education, in order to familiarize participants with the Axelar network. To start, we ask that all interested participants read through:

Axelar’s Whitepaper

A Technical Introduction to the Axelar Network

As well as the other articles posted on Axelar’s blog.

This first portion will be followed by an open call for submissions. This is your chance to get creative! We are prioritizing quality submissions over quantity, and are looking for original, creative and well executed contributions. Please be sure to read through the submission and program guidelines before submitting.

Some ideas for submissions include, but are not limited to:

• Blog posts covering various aspects of Axelar
• Explainer/walkthrough videos
• Whiteboard videos
• Infographic videos
• Technical blog posts
• Guides
• Translations
• Telegram/Discord bots
• Creating & moderating new community channels
• Creating an Axelar subReddit
• Graphics

For creators:

• Writing a post(s) covering Axelar on your Medium page
• Creating an explainer/whiteboard/analysis, etc. of Axelar for your YouTube channel
• Featuring Axelar on your podcast
• Covering Axelar in your blog

These are just some suggestions of the types of possible submissions! Once you’ve assembled all of your links, docs, etc, all eligible participants are invited to fill the Quantum Community Program Submission Form. Please only submit one form per person, and include all relevant material you would like considered. While multiple submissions from a single participant will be accepted, a higher volume of submissions will not guarantee that you will move onto the next phase!

There have already been some great initiatives taken by the community in terms of content creation, moderation, and more- so if you run or moderate a community Telegram channel, have submitted translations, etc. we encourage you to submit all relevant work and links to the program! If accepted, you will be invited to complete weekly tasks/metrics moving forward to continue with the program.

Program phases and timelines:

Phase 1 will consist of an open call for eligible submissions, where participants are encouraged to submit their previous and/or current work. The top 300 participants will be invited to move onto Phase 2 of the program, based on the quality, creativity and scope of their submissions. Next, the top 150 participants from Phase 2 will be chosen to move onto Phase 3 of the program, and from there, the top 50 participants will be invited to move onto the 4th and final phase of the program. Phases 2–4 will see participants expand on their original submissions and continue to create new and creative work. The quality of the submissions will be judged exclusively at the discretion of the Axelar Foundation.

Participants accepted into Phase 2 of the program will achieve an official rank and will be sent an exclusive Axelar NFT to display on their profile and use across their socials. Participants who successfully make it to Phase 3 will also achieve an official rank and will receive an exclusive NFT as well as a custom swag pack. Lastly, those who make it to the Phase 4 of the program will achieve the highest official rank as well as receive an exclusive NFT and a limited edition swag pack.

If you have any questions, comments or just want to learn more, please join Axelar’s Discord and post in the #quantum-community-program-qa channel.

Phases 2, 3 and 4 will be incentivized with an allocation of up to 100,000 tokens per phase, divided between the accepted participants. Some participants may receive a higher allocation for their contributions, depending on the quality and quantity of the submissions, which will be judged at the discretion of the Axelar Foundation.

The genesis supply of the Axelar network at the launch will be 1B Axelar Tokens. Subject to potential modification by the Axelar Foundation, currently it is estimated that up to 300,000 tokens from the genesis supply will be distributed amongst the Quantum Community Program participants. The token rewards from the incentivized testnet will be distributed to eligible participants in the future at the mainet launch. Please note that the Quantum Community Program is only open to participants outside of the US and Canada.

By applying to participate in the Quantum Community Program you acknowledge that in order to be eligible for the future distribution of Axelar tokens for successful submissions, you will be required to pass any and all required KYC/AML checks and perform other actions deemed necessary by the Axelar foundation.

Future grants will be awarded to participants based on their submissions to the program, although it is not required to complete all suggested tasks. Feel free to contribute as much or as little as you like depending on your interests and skillets! The only thing we do ask is that you fill out the completion form in order for your submission to be evaluated. Emphasis will be placed on originality, outreach, creativity, and impact.

The resources accepted into the Quantum Community Program will be featured on an exciting new platform- more news on that coming soon!

Axelar Announces the launch of their Incentivized Quantum Community Program was originally published in Axelar on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Axelar is excited to announce a partnership with Metrika to empower Axelar’s community with operational intelligence tools. Metrika specializes in real-time monitoring of the operational health of decentralized networks and applications. Their suite of tools deliver key analytics and alerts around latency, security and reliability allowing network developers and operators to proactively identify problems before they happen. Metrika’s platform provides transparency and visibility into the health and operational status of applications and networks across entire blockchain ecosystems, which will be essential to Axelar’s mission of enabling cross chain interoperability. The dashboards monitoring the network’s health will be publicly accessible so that any validator or network participant can view them.

“We’re happy to partner with Metrika to bring industry leading tools to the network,” said Georgios Vlachos, Co-Founder of Axelar. “This will enable real time and predictive monitoring for Axelar, providing all ecosystem participants with a concise and clear view of the network.”

Axelar joins the top tier list of leading blockchains that Metrika counts as customers including: Solana, Hedera Hashgraph, Algorand, Flow (Dapper Labs), and others.

“With the pace of Axelar’s growth and the continued push towards mass scale interoperability, Metrika looks forward to working with Sergey, Georgios and the wider team as they continue on their mission in facilitating a blockchain-based future. In doing so, we look forward to all Axelar users using our operational intelligence tools for greater transactional transparency,” said Nikos Andrikogiannopoulos, Founder and CEO of Metrika.

In an interconnected, multi-protocol world, as operational complexity increases, Metrika’s tools will be necessary to any entity running blockchain infrastructure from simple node runners to critical enterprise applications. Both Metrika and Axelar are committed to building the future of cross-chain interoperability, and believe that the combination of the right monitoring tools to support the network will be a game changer for the industry. Follow @Axelarcore and @Metrikaco to see when the public dashboard links will be made available.

Axelar Partners with Metrika to Bring Operational Intelligence Tools to the Network was originally published in Axelar on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.