Try Quests to earn cryptoCosmology - The Wormhole
The Wormhole Token Bridge allows you to seamlessly transfer tokenized assets across Solana, Ethereum, BSC, Terra, and Polygon. It works like a decentralized notary, monitoring the chains for emitted messages and then using these messages to route to other chains. This means, the bridge is versatile. The connectivity doesn't depend on the similaritites between chains. Each chain will hae its own beacon contract, which feed to Wormhole network that is validated by Validators called Guardians. Since this beacon contract isn't dependant on nothing except its parent chain, any blockchain can be connected and any form of token can be bridged, irrespective of its consensus mechanism or structure.
Since its opening post Col-5, Wormhole has seen increasing volume. In this dashboard, we will analyze the activity on the bridge. We will also compare this activity to its predecessor Mirror's Shuttle Bridge.
First we will look into the Inflow into Terra ecosystem via Wormhole. By tracking flow of assets from the Wormhole contract terra10nmmwe8r3g99a9newtqa7a75xfgs2e8z87r2sf
As inflow doesn't contain any information regarding the Chain from which the asset is imported, we can't track the asset details of these
On Terra, Wormhole transfers are handled by the contract terra10nmmwe8r3g99a9newtqa7a75xfgs2e8z87r2sf
UST is the most popular inflow asset. The reasoning behind this is its widespread adoption in other chains compared to LUNA. This means, there are easy ways to obtain UST on other networks (Curve on ERC chains, Saber on Solana, Pancakeswap on Binance). Hence its easy to get your hands on UST on other chains than LUNA. Hence if an users wants to onboard from another chain, UST bridging is the way.
By tracking flow of assets into the Wormhole contract terra10nmmwe8r3g99a9newtqa7a75xfgs2e8z87r2sf, we can track outflow from Terra ecosystem via the Wormhole bridge.
Moreover, as the metadata must contain information of the destination chain, we can easily get movement into other chain details
Once again, due to its widespread adoption, UST is the ideal means to bridge out one's portfolio, cause there are better secondary markets and uses for UST on those chains than that of other tokens.
Solana is the most popular destination for bridgers. This is probably due to combination of :
- Recent Price action of Solana
- Ultra cheap transaction fees
- Great UST yield farming opportunities
- Chance for Terra natives to explore a new chain
We already know that, Wormhole transfers are handled by terra10nmmwe8r3g99a9newtqa7a75xfgs2e8z87r2sf. Similarly, the Shuttle transfers are handled by terra13yxhrk08qvdf5zdc9ss5mwsg5sf7zva9xrgwgc.
Thus by tracking the inflow and outflows of the contracts, we can compare the two bridging systems
We will compare the two bridges since swaps from Oct 1, post launch of columbus-5
Despite a newer alternative, Shuttle holds its own, managing to route the lion share of bridges. This is primarily due to the extensive array of tokens that can be bridged via Shuttle. Shuttle being a Mirror product allows transfer of mAssets, which are used extensively on the Binance ecosystem as a trustless means to gain exposure to US stock market. However, we can expect this to change, as Wormhole will introduce more tokens and become more versatile as it matures
Since its inception, Wormhole has primarily acted as a bridge to allow LUNAtics to explore the Solana ecosystem as funds can be easily transformed. It still forms a small percent of overall bridge usage. But this is bound to change with more versatility is added in the form of newer chains and wider variety of assets