Osmosis DAO Selects Axelar as Bridge Service Provider, Launches Cross-Ecosystem Swaps

AUSTIN, Texas, June 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Osmosis, the Cosmos-based interchain automatic market maker (AMM), today announces the launch of cross-ecosystem token swaps. It's the first offering on the DEX that is enabled by Axelar, the secure cross-chain communication infrastructure provider that the Osmosis DAO has voted in as the canonical bridge to connect with the Ethereum ecosystem. Osmosis already supports swaps between Ethereum and Cosmos-based tokens and will soon leverage Axelar to support the Avalanche, Binance Smart Chain, Polkadot, and Polygon ecosystems, creating the first permissionless, one-click application for universal cross-chain swaps.

Osmosis is already leveraging Axelar to enable trading of wrapped versions of ETH, BTC, and a variety of stablecoins that have been crucial safe-havens in the wake of UST's collapse. The addition of the L1 tokens AVAX, BNB, DOT, and MATIC will set the stage for even more exciting possibilities. The beauty of this integration is that users will continue to have the same seamless experience they're used to on Osmosis even as they're accessing tokens from many more ecosystems. The cross-chain backend is entirely abstracted away, so swaps only require a single click.

As it stands, cross-chain DeFi has proven very challenging to implement. Even when projects have launched dApps on a variety of L1s, they've had to contend with the fragmentation of liquidity as well as internal developer resources. Osmosis is poised to remedy that problem by leveraging Axelar to provide DeFi applications with a cross-chain swap backend that they can access through simple API integrations. This will enable, for instance, a lending dApp to give its users the ability to deposit ETH as collateral to borrow AVAX. With the deepest liquidity of any interchain DEX, Osmosis is well-positioned to fill this void of cross-chain swaps as a service and become the go-to backend for a variety of DeFi projects across a range of blockchain ecosystems.

"With its Interchain DNA, Osmosis is uniquely positioned to grow explosively in an interoperable Web3," said Sergey Gorbunov, Axelar Co-Founder. "Using Axelar's secure cross-chain communication infrastructure, Osmosis can siphon liquidity from centralized exchanges, and become a go-to back-end for cross-chain swaps that any application developer can use. The potential is far-reaching, indeed."

Axelar received the nod to act as the sole bridge infrastructure provider for Osmosis following a vetting and voting process spearheaded by the Osmosis DAO in coordination with Osmosis Labs, the primary developer team building on Osmosis. The Osmosis community accepted proposals from an array of different bridge providers, and Sunny Aggarwal, Co-Founder of Osmosis Labs, publicly interviewed the leading candidates before the DAO went to vote.

The DAO selected Axelar as a long-term partner that first provides the cross-chain infrastructure to link Osmosis with the Ethereum ecosystem and then will follow on with connections to many more major ecosystems. The Osmosis community looked at UX, security, execution history, and reputation/alignment to inform its decision that Axelar is the most well-suited interoperability partner.

"I'm excited to be working with the Axelar team to integrate best-in-class bridging into Osmosis and proud of the Osmosis community for all of the engagement in driving the bridge selection process," said Aggarwal. "As Osmosis moves into its next phase of growth as a liquidity hub for DeFi not just in the interchain but across many L1 ecosystems, Axelar is an essential partner."

Osmosis has from its outset had the vision of making interchain DeFi better than any centralized platforms for trading crypto, and to fulfill that vision Osmosis aims to make the user experience as simple and seamless as possible. Having a single bridge provider is crucial in pursuing that end.

By only integrating a single bridge, Osmosis can have a single version of each bridged asset, rather than a confusing collection of prefixed tokens as appears on other DEXes that have multiple bridge providers. This also means that liquidity isn't fragmented across exchange pairs of identical assets that come across different bridges (Ie. aUSDC-bDAI and bUSDC-aDAI).

Osmosis Labs has worked closely with the Axelar team to deeply integrate cross-chain communication into the Osmosis front-end, so that the bridging of assets occurs entirely in the background for users who retain the simple and intuitive experience they're accustomed to on Osmosis. The same will be true of DeFi applications that use Osmosis as a source of liquidity and cross-chain services, and developers of those projects will also benefit from Osmosis' easily accessible APIs and wealth of tooling.

Users can enjoy a seamless cross-ecosystem trading or LP experience by visiting osmosis.zone.

Axelar delivers secure cross-chain communication for Web3, taking blockchain interoperability beyond permissioned multisigs. Axelar is a universal overlay network that supports general message passing and composability of programs via a proof-of-stake transport layer. Developer tools and APIs make it easy for both protocol and application developers to integrate interoperability. Axelar has raised capital from top-tier investors, including Binance, Coinbase Ventures and Polychain Capital. Partners include major proof-of-stake blockchains, such as Avalanche, Cosmos, Ethereum, Polkadot and Terra. Axelar's co-founders are founding team members of Algorand and award-winning graduates of MIT, where they received notable recognition as part of their graduate studies.

Osmosis is the premier decentralized exchange of the interchain. It is the primary launchpad and liquidity hub for new blockchains connecting to IBC, the Inter-Blockchain Communication protocol. Over 43 chains have connected to Osmosis, with a range of Interchain assets as well as assets from other blockchain ecosystems available on the DEX. Osmosis supports CosmWasm and Interchain Accounts and offers simple APIs and tooling that's giving it a gravitational pull for developers who are rapidly building an Interchain DeFi ecosystem on and around the DEX to offer yield aggregation, lending, and more. Get started today at https://osmosis.zone. Our world-class support team is there to help 24/7 on all the usual social media channels.

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SOURCE Osmosis