2 years ago
From Ethereum and Solana to Tezos and Avalanche, the past fewer years person seen the proliferation of dozens of blockchains, each with its ain strengths, weaknesses and halfway use-cases.
Against this backdrop, Polymer Labs has emerged from stealth with $3.6 cardinal successful effect backing to physique retired infrastructure for a multi-chain future. The round, which was co-led by Distributed Global and North Island Ventures, was besides joined by CoinDesk genitor institution Digital Currency Group (DCG).
Polymer Labs’ infrastructure is built to grow the IBC (inter-blockchain communication) protocol, a modular primitively developed for the Cosmos ecosystem to supply a mode for antithetic blockchains to easy pass with each other. Typically, an app built connected 1 blockchain is incompatible with different chains – requiring accident-prone, tedious-to-implement “bridges” to link accusation from 1 ecosystem to another.
Cosmos introduced a partial solution to this occupation with IBC, providing a azygous acceptable of blockchain-building standards that marque it casual for assets and applications to seamlessly determination crossed IBC-enabled chains.
Polymer Labs is facing the world that not each chains are built to IBC standards, and its routing and rollup protocol, Polymer, aims to marque it easier for non-IBC blockchains to interact with chains based connected IBC.
“We spent a batch of clip surveying the ecosystem and the antithetic interoperability projects and antithetic solutions,” co-founder Peter Kim told CoinDesk successful an interview. “What we've recovered is that Cosmos’s documentation, and the IBC specification that Tendermint [now Ignite] built truthful far, person been immoderate of the astir robust that we’ve seen.”
By Cosmos’ ain count, Cosmos hosts 28 antithetic IBC-enabled blockchains with a combined marketplace headdress of $73 billion.
Polymer is inactive successful its aboriginal days and does not yet person a token, but improvement volition yet beryllium governed by PolymerDAO, a decentralized autonomous enactment that volition let token-holders to ballot connected proposals determining the aboriginal of the protocol. According to a property merchandise from the company, PolymerDAO volition beryllium the archetypal DAO focused connected IBC infrastructure.
DISCLOSURE
The person successful quality and accusation connected cryptocurrency, integer assets and the aboriginal of money, CoinDesk is simply a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict acceptable of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an autarkic operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests successful cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups. As portion of their compensation, definite CoinDesk employees, including editorial employees, whitethorn person vulnerability to DCG equity successful the signifier of stock appreciation rights, which vest implicit a multi-year period. CoinDesk journalists are not allowed to acquisition banal outright successful DCG.
Sam is simply a quality newsman astatine CoinDesk focused connected decentralized technology, DeFi and DAOs. He owns ETH, BTC and MATIC.
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