Summing Up #AcrossV2’s Launch
Across Communications Manager Lana details all of the stages of Across V2’s launch, going through the migration, launch, how it went (+ stats) and more.
The month of May was an incredibly busy period for Across Protocol. We were prepping for our V2 launch!
The sequence of events was planned as follows:
🐦 Announce V2 liquidity migration
📣 Announce V2 features
🔓 Open migration
🎉 Launch day party!
🚀 Launch V2
🗣️ Follow up Spaces events
Buckle up — let’s review.
🐦 Announce V2 liquidity migration
As a team, we strive to make Across as easy to use as possible. This is evident with our simple UI, transparent fee presentation and in-depth Medium articles, to name a few. The Across V2 migration was no exception to this rule.
We released an article on how to migrate 2 weeks before launch. This allowed us to field any questions about why the migration was needed and how to do it, as well as ensuring we had the most visibility possible leading up to the big day.
Our design lead even made some countdown graphics to constantly remind everyone, ~in style.~
This combination allowed us to get maximum visibility on Across to ensure that people would be aware of and ready to migrate as soon as that window opened the day before the launch.
📣 Announce V2 features
On May 18th, we announced the features that would accompany V2. We had our sharp Senior Engineer John and daring Data Scientist Chase go through each and every element of exactly what the launch meant.
See below for a Spaces summary, told by my (beautiful and custom edited) Adventure Time GIFs.
If you would like to listen to that Spaces event in its entirety, click here. If you want a quick summary, read below.
To give you a recap, Across V2…
…supports L2 to L2 transfers.
With #AcrossV2, you can bounce between L2s with ease (and we’re not just saying that). Senior Engineer John took an L2 multiverse tour that took a grand total of 5 minutes and .001 ETH in gas and fees.
…supports a new chain, Polygon
Transfer to and from Polygon, now with Across V2.
…is incredibly capital efficient
Across V2 uses a lot of different mechanisms to ensure it’s incredibly capital efficient. Through its use of netting, ‘Just in Time’ liquidity, batching/bundling and our hub and spoke model, we’re able to achieve high capital efficiency that you’ll notice in the increased functionality while you’re using Across.
You can read more about our increased capital efficiency here.
… supports partial fills
In Across V2, relayers are now able to execute partial fills. This is beneficial to both our relayers and our users.
Across Senior Engineer John talks about the money-making opportunities partial fills pose for relayers in the clip below.
Across Data Scientist Chase talks about how users benefit from partial fills in this next clip.
…keeps our low-fee commitment
V2 brings additional functionality along with the same low fees you expect from Across. You can still depend on being blown away by our (very) low fees. Oh, and a new graphic to showcase that!
…doesn’t sacrifice security
Security is at the forefront of Across’ values, and we know it’s top of mind for our users. Across V2 does not sacrifice security for functionality. Across V2 is fully audited by OpenZeppelin.
V2 also continues to be secured by UMA’s optimistic oracle. You can read more about Across’ security here, and V2-specific elements here.
You can take a deep dive into all of V2’s features by reading our V2 article.
’Twas the day before V2 launch when all through the house, every creature was stirring — Look! A wireless mouse.
Code was hung from the blockchain with care, in the hopes that #AcrossV2 would soon be there.
🔓 Migration opens
Migration opened the day before launch. Having enough liquidity migrated was essential to launch Across V2. The technical members of our team were confident that a day before was the perfect amount of time for migration, and they were right.
By the time we were about to launch, $23 million was migrated to V2 from the USDC pool, and 4600 WETH was migrated from the WETH pool
🎉 Launch day party!
While the Across team was prepping for migration and launch, the Across community was planning an incredibly detailed 24-hour party. The thread below illustrates every event the community threw.
The community did an incredible job rallying tons of people for multiple campaigns and events they planned — just look at the engagement on that tweet!
This incredible effort by the community further increased awareness around Across V2’s launch. It also taught us how to make the perfect red velvet cupcake!
🚀 Launch V2
As the community party raged on, the clock was ticking closer to the V2 launch. Takeoff was scheduled for May 24th at 3:00 p.m. UTC in the Across Discord.
After (my constant) checks with the engineers, I was given a green light — the system was ready to go.
We released a button that was fully built by our community. People could press our launch button, share that they were helping launch V2 and get entered into the running for $1000 worth of $ACX.
As a side note: We had over 1000 unique users click the V2 launch button. Thank you for helping us launch Across!
About 15 minutes before launch, everyone hopped into the Across Discord to push the official big red button that would launch Across V2 and all its glory!
3…2…1… Lift off! V2 was launched.
The bridge worked as planned — it’s fast, capital efficient and secure. V2 handled the new volume going across (hehe) it and we were all (very tired and) super excited that Across V2 had launched and was working successfully.
Some stats for you:
At the time of writing this (June 7th), Across has had about 9,000 new users and approximately $30 million in total volume over the bridge since launch day.
In regards to specifics, there has been about $4.5 million in total volume to and from Polygon (our newest added chain) and about $10 million in total volume over the bridge for L2 to L2 specific transfers since launch.
Since V2 launched, we have had a 50% increase in volume across the bridge.
You, our users, are the reason that Across V2’s launch was so successful. We appreciate all of you — thank you for using Across.
🗣️ Spaces events
After the launch, we’ve continued to host spaces with our integrated chains.
You can listen to our previous spaces with Boba, Optimism and Polygon now.
Keep your eyes out for more Spaces events we’ll be hosting soon. We typically post these announcements on our Twitter and in our Discord.
Across V2 was a whirlwind of coffees, Red Bulls, Spaces events, community effort and a whole lot of engineering work. Again, thank you to all who helped us launch Across V2, and thank you to our users for using it!
For more Across V2-related content, follow our Twitter, dive into our Medium and Discord and check out our brand new V2 docs.
