The Emergence of Stargate
With the thriving development of the blockchain industry, various types of blockchain technologies such as Layer1, Layer2, Layer3, sidechains, Rollups, and more have emerged. These chains include both homogeneous and heterogeneous chains, each carrying numerous unique protocols.
This diversity of blockchains and protocols constitutes a decentralized world of crypto assets, spreading assets across different chains and protocols, inevitably leading to a reduction in the effective utilization of capital.
Fortunately, the emergence of cross-chain bridges has bridged the gap between these different chains, allowing assets to flow between different blockchains. For example, Coinbase introduced the Layer2 network Base cross-chain bridge, which can connect crypto assets on other chains to the Base network, allowing users to enjoy the early advantages of the Base chain while also bridging assets from the Base chain to other blockchains.
The emergence of this cross-chain bridge technology has significantly improved the efficiency of capital utilization. According to data from defillama, the total value locked (TVL) in cross-chain bridges ranks fourth in the current DeFi ecosystem, reaching $97 billion, trailing only decentralized exchanges (Dex).
However, in the field of cross-chain bridges, there are still some common problems such as security, high costs, and slow cross-chain speeds. It is in this context that Stargate technology has emerged, aiming to address these issues.
Team Introduction
According to early community feedback, Stargate Finance has a close relationship with LayerZero, especially in terms of developers. In fact, the whitepaper of Stargate was co-authored by three co-founders of LayerZero, further emphasizing their close cooperation.
The founding team of LayerZero consists of three core members, including Bryan Pellegrino as CEO, Ryan Zarick as CTO, and Caleb Banister. These three co-founders all graduated in computer science from the University of New Hampshire in the United States and have rich professional experience after graduation. Their professional backgrounds are as follows:
Ryan Zarick:
- Co-founder and CTO of LayerZero Labs, holds a Master's degree in Computer Science from the University of New Hampshire, USA.
- Served as CTO in multiple companies, including BuzzDraft, Coder Den, 80Trill, and Minimal AI.
- Co-founded LayerZero in 2021 and became CTO.
Bryan Pellegrino:
- Co-founder and CEO of LayerZero Labs, graduated in Computer Science from the University of New Hampshire, USA.
- Former professional poker player, co-founded a machine learning company with Ryan Zarick, successfully selling machine learning tools to an MLB team.
- Served as COO and CEO in multiple companies, including Coder Den, BuzzDraft, and OpenToken.
- Became Chief Engineer at Rho AI in 2016 and founded LayerZero in 2021.
Caleb Banister:
- Founder of LayerZero Labs, graduated in Computer Science from the University of New Hampshire, USA.
- Worked as a software developer at UNH Interoperability Lab and co-founded multiple companies, including Coder Den, 80Trill, and Minimal AI.
- Founded LayerZero in 2021.
From the experience of these three core team members, they joined forces again in 2021 to establish LayerZero Labs. The team possesses excellent capabilities in machine learning algorithms and blockchain development, as well as years of development experience and a successful entrepreneurial history.
Additionally, 0xmaki, co-founder of Sushiswap, has joined the team full-time and serves as Chief Strategic Advisor, providing support for the development of LayerZero's cross-chain ecosystem.
Product Features
- Cross-Chain Functionality (Transfer)
Cross-chain functionality is the most crucial feature of Stargate, with its intuitive user interface allowing for the cross-chain exchange of native assets in a 1:1 ratio and ensuring instant finality of results. Currently supported chains include Ethereum mainnet, BNB Chain, Avalanche, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Fantom, Metis, Polygon zkEVM, zkSync Era Mainnet, and the recently added Base network. In addition to stablecoins and ETH, Stargate also supports the cross-chain exchange of tokens such as CAKE, STG, CRV, RDNT, and more.
- Providing Liquidity (Pool)
Liquidity providers can add liquidity to Stargate and receive corresponding rewards in each of Stargate's cross-chain transactions. Users can choose different liquidity pools to provide funds, with stablecoin pools being the primary focus. Providing liquidity results in receiving LP tokens and enjoying cross-chain transaction fee rewards from the protocol.
- Liquidity Farming (Farming)
Liquidity providers on Stargate can stake their LP tokens to earn STG rewards. After obtaining LP tokens, users can choose to participate in liquidity farming to earn STG rewards. The current APY can reach over 12%, especially in stablecoin mining, which offers significant returns.
- STG Staking (Stake)
Users can stake their STG tokens and choose the length of the stake, with longer staking periods earning more veSTG tokens. veSTG will become the governance token of the Stargate platform, and holders will have more governance weight, with power directly proportional to the amount held.
Stargate Token
The native token of the Stargate platform is STG, similar to Curve. Users can lock it to obtain veSTG for voting, with the duration of the lock determining the allocation of veSTG weights. The platform primarily profits by charging transfer fees, with each non-STG token transfer incurring a 0.06% platform fee. In addition to the 0.06% fee for cross-chain transfers, there may also be pool rebalancing fees, with specific fees depending on the imbalance of pool weights between source and destination chains. According to previous data analysis, all of Stargate's metrics are continuously growing.
Current Status of Development
According to data from defillama, among the current cross-chain bridges, the 24-hour trading volume of Stargate has reached $170 million, and the total chain trading volume of Stargate has exceeded $720 million, accounting for nearly 50% of the cross-chain trading volume, far surpassing other cross-chain protocols. Moreover, among all the cross-chain bridges on Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Fantom, and BSC chains, Stargate's trading volume ranks first, highlighting Stargate's industry position.
Stargate's total value locked (TVL) exceeds $300 million, much higher than other cross-chain bridges such as Hop. Even in the entire DeFi protocol landscape, Stargate's TVL ranks 30th. According to tokenterminal's data, Stargate has a daily active user count of 48,000, almost ten times that of other cross-chain bridges. The trend chart shows a significant increase in Stargate's active users starting from the end of March. In the past year, Stargate's fees have been continuously increasing, with a fee increase of over 400% in the last six months. Compared to other cross-chain bridges, Stargate generates more than $80,000 in fees per day, far exceeding the fees generated by other cross-chain bridges.
Future Development
Stargate is an officially endorsed cross-chain bridge by LayerZero, which has a positive impact on Stargate's development and is expected to attract more users. Among many multi-chain cross-chain protocols, Stargate holds a leading position.
In the future, multi-chain coexistence will become an inevitable trend, with different forms of blockchains continually emerging. As a fully-fledged cross-chain interoperability protocol with a valuation of $3 billion, LayerZero will connect more assets on different chains. As LayerZero supports more chains, Stargate will also support more chains and token cross-chain operations. This will continually increase Stargate's trading volume, user count, and total value locked (TVL), driving Stargate's development.
Moreover, as a subsidiary of LayerZero, Stargate's role is not limited to cross-chain bridges. According to Stargate's documentation, its goal is to become a provider of asset cross-chain technology, providing convenient Stargate usage for more projects to achieve cross-chain functionality. The future development of Stargate is highly anticipated.
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