- Launch of liquidity program in ETH and USDC. Now, if you invest more than 70% of other wallets in the token pool, then in a month you can get Galaxy NFT. The program is active until June 15th.

https://galxe.com/connextnetwork/campaign/GC1SiU4gvJ

Deposit statistics can be found on Dune.
https://dune.com/bitereum/connext-pools-lp-percentiles
Since the launch of this program, TVL has grown from 11kk to 18kk.

- Partnerships and integrations with projects such as PLANET IX (top 1 game project on Polygon), the Graph, Keep3r Network, Wonderland and many others.

- Metamask integrated Connext into the Portfolio page for cross swaps. Full interaction from the extension is planned in the future.
https://twitter.com/MetaMask/status/1590350599815540736

- Launched xQuests quests on SparkWave.

- The first stage of the Ambassador's program (Contributor Program) has come to an end.
- And finally, the long-awaited launch of Amarok. I already wrote a full article about it and the NEXT token. In a nutshell, Amarok allows you to improve the cost and speed of transactions, and solve some technical features. It is also a big breakthrough for cross-chain application development.
https://teletype.in/@connext_fan_en/connext-amarok-en

Also, I would like to remind you about their wonderful Academy, which can be useful not only in studying Connext, but also in understanding the importance of creating such platforms.

Connext links: Website | Documentation | Twitter | Discord | Github | Blog

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The lack of such integration puts projects from Awesome Near, a site with all projects on NEAR, in a bad position. Developers are forced to limit themselves to off-the-shelf solutions provided by the ecosystem by default, or create their own. A third option could be in the form of integration with projects like Connext.

Connext is a decentralized protocol that allows developers to make secure and scalable crosschain bridges without introducing time layers. Also, it works in a similar way as Layer 2 protocols, which adds versatility.

There are many similar projects, why Connext?

Connext can help solve the described weakness by providing the ability to integrate with other networks. By using third-party validators, it is possible to make sure that economic security is not weakened.

And thanks to the recent Amarok update, blockchain "communication" has become faster and cheaper. In addition, Routers, the people who set up "nodes", receiving higher ROI due to balancing.

Despite the collapse of the entire crypto market, Connext performed well, maintaining a good dynamics in increasing the number of transactions. The important point is the liquidity, which reduced in dollars by only 10% compared to April, while the entire market has fallen by 60% since then, indicating an inflow of TVL in tokens. If you take other weeks, it even grew in dollar terms when cryptocurrency capitalization fell by half during that time. In general, Connext feels very comfortable.

Partnerships with such ecosystem projects like Nomad only improve the entire cryptosphere. This is important for building crosschain applications more easily. An important clarification: everything works only in a limited form so far, but this is only the beginning. Over time, there will be more partnerships as well as a wealth of functionality.

What will it give Near

The most obvious thing is to get new users who have not used NEAR because it "stands on the sidelines". You can't add it to Metamask, you can't use familiar applications. All in all, integration with Connext will give a whole bunch of benefits. You don't want to test the sharding mechanism too much, if you have to do a lot of unnecessary things. There is no reason to explore the universe of Awesome Near, if it doesn't interact with the rest of cryptosphere.

Money Flow. This point follows from the previous one, as the Near ecosystem becomes at least quantitatively larger.

Partnerships. More users → more apps→ new profitable integrations with projects. In addition, the system as a whole becomes healthier when approaches from other blockchains move to different networks. This can be called experience sharing.

Conclusion

It is important for us to find as easy as possible ways to integrate blockchains to improve the cryptosphere as such, because the ultimate goal is to attract everyone to use the delights of new technologies. And it is for these reasons that we can consider that both NEAR needs Connext and vice versa. All I see here is win-win.

Connext: Website | Documentation | Twitter | Discord | Github | Blog

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Now I would like to do a SWOT analysis.

SWOT

Strengths (strengths)

Simplicity. Connext is very easy to use and does not require deep knowledge of the crypto ecosystems. It is enough to understand what you want — for example, transfer tokens from one network to another. This requires the main tokens of these networks to pay for gas and the ability to change networks. That’s all.

Design. Compared to many competitors, the design looks more pleasant and understandable. There is no excess of unnecessary information, but at the same time there is a description of the ongoing processes so that the user is less confused.

Experienced team. Mentions of Connext can be found on the CEO Medium back in 2018. This means that it has already stood the test of time and the people behind the project have a lot of experience in both Web 3, and Connext development in particular. It looks like they are not and are going to drop it soon. New features, improvements and partnerships are constantly being announced.

Rich set of networks. In the Comparison with Axelar Network, I covered it better with actual numbers.

Weaknesses (weaknesses)

Liquidity. Right now, due to the lack of liquidity, it is difficult to work with even slightly unique pairs. However, it is important to say that TVL is constantly increasing and as the project grows, this problem gradually disappears.

Opportunities (opportunities)

Partnerships. There are already many networks on the market that require a solution to the problem of blockchain interaction. For starters, it can be a simple exchange of tokens from one ecosystem to another.

Growth of the cryptosphere. More capitalization -> higher income of network components -> more solid investments and bounty -> better product. You can think of many such chains, but the essence is clear anyway.

Threats

Ethereum. Yes, don’t be surprised by this point. Ethereum can theoretically become so advanced that it can cover most of the problems that Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchains are trying to solve. This will simply result in them not being as necessary and chances are blockchain interoperability will be important on a much smaller scale. But we should not forget that Ethereum is very bulky, which does not allow it to develop as quickly as we would like it to be. NEAR, for example, has sharding for a long time, when Ethereum is still in the process of development.

Regulators. Don’t get me wrong, regulation in itself is only a positive thing. I will combine here all the potential threats from governments. This may include control over the ecosystem and the individuals in it, restrictions, attempts to regulate too much, blocking, etc. This point applies more to the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem, and not specifically to Connext.

Competition. Since Connext is trying to solve an important problem, it is not alone and its competitors are very serious, many of which already have a working product in the mainnet and the same number are planning to release soon. This can be seen as an “engine of progress”, but the fact remains that it is almost always difficult to compete.

Activities

Right now there is an opportunity to donate to them through Gitcoin. Theoretically, there is a possibility that something will be given for this. There is not much time left, so if you want to participate, then hurry up.

In addition, they participate in the event from Arbitrum. This week you need to make at least 1 exchange through Connext and receive NFT at the end of the week. Absolutely every crypto channel has already written about Arbitrum, so I don’t want to repeat.

Connext: Website | Documentation | Twitter | Discord | Github | Blog

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Connext is a universal blockchain bridge for comfortable and easy communication between L2 projects and various networks.

Connext, which I talked about in more detail in the other article, is launching an ambassador program. Infographics will all info at the end.

Start: April 20
Deadline is June 6th, 11:59pm UTC. (New date: July 15)

You can choose one category:
1. Community leaders
2. Developers
3. Content makers
4. Operators (routers)
5. Bounty hunters.

Yes, some categories may overlap. All help to the project will be taken into account in the form that will be released by the end of the program.
For making great content you get points, which are then converted into NEXT tokens.

Among the goals of the program, there are several important parameters that can be combined into the following:

• Spread the word about Connext. This includes attracting new users and developers, creating material that will be in demand.
• Education. Creating material that could be suitable for the Connext Academy, or tutorials about installing a node or writing your own basic applications for Connext.

In general, you are given freedom of choice. If you want to create content, choose Educator. And we will take a look at this path right now. It also includes the Content category, so you can: make stickers, memes, tweets, videos, articles. The most important point is quality. You can copy a dozen videos, but they won’t get you many points. It is better to spend this time creating something more complex, unique and interesting. Remember, you are doing something for people and you are getting tokens as a reward for it.

Translations are rated as Very low to low point rewards (except for complex and complete translations on their website as Average-High). Here you can translate the entire series of articles or documentation.

After the first phase, there will be a continuation for another 2–3 months. More details about the current program.

We also participated in their testnet. The snapshot for NEXT distribution has already been taken, and the only way for community members to potentially earn more tokens is by participating in this program. In my opinion, you should definitely take a look or try the platform yourself.

There is no report form yet, there is also no confirmation by mail after passing KYC.

By the way, the token has not yet been released or announced for sale. Beware of scams.

Website| Discord | Twitter

In a nutshell, this is a bridge between blockchains where different layers are not required.

Imagine that users can access all the functions of various ecosystems, without having to purchase a token of this network. Now you do not need to look for a million bridges, or transfer tokens from CEX, simply to use a network. For Aurora it is ETH in the Aurora network, for BSC it is BNB, Near is Near. This is very inconvenient, plus it adds large commissions. In Ethereum, for example, for almost the entire 2021, it was a surprise to see a commission below a couple of tens of dollars for the simplest operation.

Recently, such concepts as NFT and DeFi have been added to ordinary transfers, not to mention the emergence of new blockchains, which further increase the need for cross-chain operations. This simply complicates both the interaction with the entire ecosystem, and with individual applications in particular. At the same time, developers need to constantly evaluate the pros and cons in choosing a blockchain. They also need to try to make the application as accessible as possible on other networks, which requires additional time and resources.

This all means that an application on one blockchain may not work with another. Like an Ethereum token, it cannot interact with Cosmos.

Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of Connext.

Unlike other communication protocols, Connext does not use third-party tools to communicate between networks. This means that Connext is only as secure as the underlying networks.

Also, I would like to emphasize that Connext works the same way in different ecosystems, which allows rapid expansion to other networks and their different features.

Routers do not block their liquidity, nor do they need to use L1 protocols when interacting with L2 networks, often making transactions much cheaper.

Let’s move on to numbers.

Since launching in early 2021, the Connext network has grown by 50% every week, recently hitting $40 million a week and over 40,000 unique users. By the way, around the same time, the team raised a $2.2 million round from Polychain, Huobi. So far, 1.3 billion has been moved across the bridge over 700k transactions, with a liquidity of 45 million.

They also raised $12mln from ConsenSys Mesh, Coinbase Ventures, OkEx Ventures and Hashed. These funds will be used to expand the team and increase liquidity as the team rolls out the next phase of its network.*

As a result, it turned out that almost half was collected from funds and a quarter from ecosystem partners.

With this money, the team is going to bring in key stakeholders who will cement Connext’s position as the leading non-custodial interoperability protocol for Ethereum-compatible networks.

Overall, they believe they can create a better ecosystem for this kind of purpose. Such partnerships, which not only bring in capital, but also help with Connext’s key R&D of protocols and network launch, will greatly help in the development of the system.

As you could already understand, they are now in search of talents. If you think that you can help them and, most importantly, want to do it, then visit the page with open positions.

This money will also be needed to implement route auctions, a mechanism for rapidly increasing liquidity across all networks. More on this in one of the following articles.

Connext has been in development ever since it received a grant from the Ethereum Foundation in 2018. In the summer of 2020, the team noticed the fragmentation of the pooling space and created a prototype for instant and cheap transfer of value between testnet implementations of Optimism, Arbitrum, SKALE, Polygon, and others.

Conclusion

Think of Connext as the foundation for Web 3, the glue of this ecosystem, when you no longer have to choose between networks. You will be able to use everything without any noticeable restrictions, which is now a huge problem.

Connext links: Website | Documentation | Twitter | Discord | Github | Blog

More my networks: Podcast | Telegram | Medium | All platforms

Now let’s take a look at Connext in general and NEXT token.

What can be built on Connext:

• Exchanges. In essence, this is the transfer of tokens from one network to tokens in another network.
• Cross-chain NFTs. You can wrap any NFT and transfer to another network. From here you can deduce a number of controversial points, according to the type of originality of NFT after translation, or what to do if the same collection already exists on other networks, then how exactly the right of some originality will be implemented.
• NFT Marketplace.
• Staking on any network.
• Finding the best deals between networks. This is no longer just a transfer from one network to another, but a kind of exchange aggregator.
• Landing. You can deposit on one blockchain and borrow on another.
• Farming.
• Governance. Vote on any network.
• One interesting solution has already been implemented. Buying on a centralized exchange and sending tokens to your wallet. I haven’t seen anything like it yet. As a use case, I came up with the following: multi-accounts. There are times when you need to hide the source of the appearance of funds in the accounts. So many choose the following approach: send money from the main wallet to an exchange, and from there withdraw to each wallet. Obviously, this is extremely inconvenient.
  And yes, multisend does not always help for these purposes. So are mixers.

Of course, the set of applications is not limited to this list. These are just some examples of how Connext can be used. In reality, there are not so many restrictions, it just requires a little bit of fantasy and the development of all ecosystem in order to find new problems and fix them.

For the sake of interest and perspective assessment, we can consider the statistics from Explorer.

Amarok update

Thanks to the recently announced Amarok update, Connext will soon become the first and only network to enable blockchain-to-blockchain communication without the use of “crutches”.

This update will improve the cost and speed of transactions, and resolve some technical issues. Since transactions are tied to one router, if it has problems, funds can be stuck for up to 3 days, or there may be delays.

For developers and routers, this update will also be useful. Standardization, ROI increase due to balancing, some kind of transaction rollback mechanism and other changes.

This breakthrough will spark a new wave of innovation in cross-chain application (xApp) development.

To make this possible, the NEXT token has been announced. Total supply: 1 billion, ERC-20 standard.

What is NEXT

The purpose of the NEXT token is to provide sufficient compensation for liquidity providers of various tokens on supported protocol networks.

NEXT keeps the network running by ensuring that all participants are subject to the same set of transaction ordering rules.

In addition to its role, NEXT will be used to manage the treasures of the Connext network ecosystem through the DAO.

You can earn these tokens by being active. There is very little time left, so hurry up if you would like to participate.

Conclusion

For a more complete immersion, I recommend reading their Academy and documentation. In the documentation, they have a quick start for developers there, the passage through which takes 5–15 minutes.

Connext links: Website | Documentation | Twitter | Discord | Github | Blog

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Connext Network and Axelar Network are quite similar. In order to understand their pros and cons let’s compare them.

Full infographic at the end.

Axelar Network

We have also already considered this project (1, 2), but I will remind you its general idea. Axelar Network is a network that works as a middleman and connects all blockchains, their applications and tokens. It allows you to simply connect other ecosystem solutions to your project and expand their functionality by making them cross-chain without spending a lot of time and resources.

So a cross-chain transfer goes like this (simplified):

1. 2 coins are selected in different networks.
2. Assets wrapped with the Axelar network are being prepared. It turns out axlUSDC as an example.
3. Generation one-time deposit addresses.
4. Deposit. Validators approve (or reject) the transaction. If everything went smoothly, then the desired tokens are sent to your wallet.

Connext Network

Connext was created for similar purposes — to simplify the interaction between blockchains. This is a decentralized protocol that allows developers to create scalable and secure cross-chain bridges without introducing temporary layers.

Let’s take a look at the same transfer process in the Connext Network.

1. Connext is looking for a router with the best (minimal) commission.
2. A transaction is sent, which is processed by that router.
3. Claim tokens in the destination network.

For more information, see Explorer.

Transaction details from one exchange

Project Comparison

Similarities:

• Using Thresholds. Both networks are as secure as their underlying networks. For example: to complete an operation in networks A and B, confirmation is required from 75% and 80% of validators, respectively. In this case, the most secure option will be used — 80%.
• Slashing. Malicious validators are punished. I recommend that you also look at Connext update — Amarok.

In Connext Router, it is a node that redirects assets and acts as a liquidity provider.

Differences

• Connext does not use temporary layers, unlike Axelar. As we have already established, Axelar creates one-time addresses and cross-chain operations are carried out with their help.
• In Connext, because of the previous point, there is such a thing as TVL, which is $38.8kk. In Axelar, AXL tokens are staked (there was no TGE atm). Current Chain Value is $33.4kk.
• Connext relies on a single router that is in charge of the entire operation. Axelar uses some kind of “collective intelligence”.
• Connext transactions are executed across chains using a locking mechanism, meaning the transfer of tokens is one-to-one. Within a certain time, the router is required to transfer tokens.
• A mechanism for staking NEXT tokens, calling on routers to act in their own interests, which is to maintain the network.
• Different stack of modules. In Axelar, these are Cross-Chain Gateway Protocol (CGP) and Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CTP), while the following are used to build Connext:

Statictics

• Number of networks supported by Axelar 11, while Connext 17
• The number of validators for Connext — 52, and for Axelar — 42 (out of 44)
• The number of supported currencies in the Ethereum network: Connext — 9, Axelar — 12. It may not be entirely correct to compare here, since only one network is taken into account, but still Ethereum — is the main network. In addition, Axelar Satellite is just one of the directions. We do not take into account Axelarsea, which operates on 5 networks at the moment.

Conclusion

We cannot determine which is better. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Only time will put everything in its place.

If you’re interested in getting involved in building a better Web 3, then join the Connext team.

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