The past few years have been quite eventful for the crypto industry as innovators shifted focus to solving underlying challenges, including scalability, security and interoperability.
This spirit of innovation has given rise to Layer-2 solutions such as the Celer Network, a scaling platform designed to enable fast, secure and low-cost decentralized applications (DApps) on networks like Ethereum, Polkadot and other Layer-2 chains.
Celer Network leverages a Generalized State Channel Network and advanced Rollup technology at the core, introducing a scalable and interoperable crypto ecosystem.
This Layer-2 chain touts a bridging middleware dubbed cBridge, a multi-chain network that facilitates value transfer across Ethereum’s Layer-1 chain and Layer-2 chains. Ideally, cBridge connects different Blockchain networks, enabling instant and low-cost value transfers.
Launched in July 2021, cBridge has already hit a total of $1 billion transactions. The platform has facilitated over 110k transactions from 36k unique addresses.
Hitting the $1 billion mark is a significant milestone for the project, alongside the launch of its version 2 mainnet.
Bridging the Future of Crypto
Before Layer-2 chains, blockchain networks operated independently, making it hard for crypto users to transfer assets across different chains.
Well, this has now changed, thanks to the likes of Celer Network’s cBridge.
This bridging solution has risen the ranks pretty fast, with its first month recording a total transaction volume of over $10 million. Since then, it has been on an upward trajectory, now recording over $10 million transactions daily.
cBridge’s universal value transfer network extends the Celer State Channel network functionality by bridging Liquidity across multiple chains. The project modified its off-chain communication protocol, enabling multi-homing.
Essentially, one node can simultaneously have a presence in different chains, including Ethereum’s Layer-1 and Layer-2 chains (Arbitrum, Optimism and Celer). This allows for liquidity bridging across any of the networks.
? cBridge surpasses $1 billion in total cross-chain transaction volume! Big ? to our partners and users in accelerating the adoption of our shared #blockchain ecosystem together. Let's bridge.
? https://t.co/35fICZsz3A: most number of chains, lowest fee, fully non-custodial. pic.twitter.com/5UdEVjAKRP — CelerNetwork (@CelerNetwork) November 18, 2021
Looking into the future, cBridge plans to support other vibrant blockchain networks such as Solana and Cardano. The project’s Co-founder Dr Mo Dong also recently said in an AMA that they will likely connect more EVM compatible sidechains once the version 2 mainnet goes live,
“Harmony, Celo, and Moonriver are all relatively easy due to EVM compatibility and will be connected quite shortly after the v2.0 launch.”
cBridge 2.0 Beta Debuts
As mentioned previously, cBridge has also launched its 2.0 Beta version. This upgrade features advanced features for cBridge users, including a simpler UI, native gas token unwrapping, insured bridge node service level and deep liquidity to support larger transfer sizes.
Additionally, the new upgrade eliminates the need for liquidity providers (LPs) to run a cbridge node. Instead, cBridge’s State Guardian Network (SGN) acts as a node, allowing LPs to provide liquidity without necessarily running a cBridge node.
It is also the first time that cBridge is experimenting with a shared liquidity pool model.
“For this 2.0 testnet, we first lived the pooled liquidity model, so griefing is not applicable here. As long as there is liquidity, transactions will go through,” added Dr Dong during the AMA session.
Conclusion
Despite being around for over a decade, the crypto industry has been operating as a fragmented ecosystem.
This has been a big challenge in fostering innovations as developers have had to choose between one network or the other, beating the whole logic of building permissionless and universal ecosystems.
Innovations such as Celer’s cBridge paint a grim picture about the future of the crypto ecosystem. It is already evident that communities don’t want to be limited within a single network, hence interoperability’s value proposition.
As the crypto market continues to grow, multi-chain solutions will significantly attract more users by introducing cheaper, faster and interoperable crypto ecosystems.
