The digital assets and blockchain space has evolved quite rapidly during the past decade. Beginning with Bitcoin (BTC) in 2009, we gradually started witnessing the emergence of other blockchains such as Nxt and then eventually Ethereum (ETH) in July 2015, when its initial version was released. At that time, tech giants such as Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and IBM (NYSE: IBM) were not as heavily invested in the crypto space.
The rise of smart contracts-based applications, following the launch of Ethereum, have led to the creation of a wide range of decentralized applications (dApps). Blockchain or DLT can be applied to determine the authenticity of documents, carry out decentralized identity verification, fundamentally improve the trade finance processes, among many other exciting applications such as minting non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Big Tech investing in blockchain interoperability
Notably, Microsoft was recently awarded a patent for implementing a cross-chain token service. The patent is aimed at developing solutions that enable blockchain interoperability, so that tokens from different DLT networks can be transferred across multiple protocols. Cross-chain solutions are also meant to support information exchange between independent blockchain platforms.
Some of the key questions many analysts are asking at this time is whether Big Tech such as Microsoft or IBM will start dominating the cross-chain interoperability space. Interestingly, this is the same question that Fintech industry participants have been asking for the past few years as well. There’s no denying that the traditional financial industry is being disrupted in a major way.
Individual consumers and businesses are demanding more from their financial service providers. While the larger players might have far more resources to execute their innovation plans, they might not always have the best approach or strategy in place. For this reason and other key factors, like simply not having the right in-house expertise to develop an effective financial product, we are definitely going to see breakthrough initiatives like Chainlink (LINK) and deBridge providing the solutions that the market really needs at this time.
Last month, deBridge secured $5.5 million in capital in order to facilitate cross-chain swaps of digital assets including NFTs. deBridge aims to offer the decentralized “standard” for enabling cross-chain interoperability and supporting liquidity transfers.
deBridge has been designed to help platforms with scaling up their protocols, establishing bridges for arbitrary assets, and creating new types of cross-chain interoperability applications on top of a “truly” decentralized infrastructure.
DeFi Protocol deBridge to Enable Seamless Cross-Chain Swaps
The proceeds from deBridge’s investment round will be channeled towards deploying the platform’s MainNet this year. The first version of the protocol will aim to support the Binance Smart Chain (BSC), Ethereum (ETH), Polygon (POLY), HECO and Arbitrum cross-chain swaps as well as ensuring interoperability.
These solutions are essential if the crypto and blockchain sector is to achieve mainstream adoption. At this stage, every type of business organization is involved in the DLT space. For example, JPMorgan and ConsenSys have been working on an enterprise-grade blockchain solution known as Quorum. While it’s not completely permissionless nor fully open-sourced, we are still seeing other large financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley entering the crypto space.
Smaller yet agile blockchain projects like deBridge are definitely in a position to make meaningful contributions to the crypto-assets industry. More than likely, the future of cross-chain token services will involve active participation from organizations and projects of all sizes. We can also expect different business entities to develop their own proprietary products and specialities. In the coming years, we can also expect a diverse range of platforms, both small and large, playing a key role in improving cross-chain interoperability.
Source link