Elk Weekly Recap — #15

Elk launched on 6 new chains, making fast, safe, and free cross-chain transfers a reality on 12 chains. Read on for more from this monumental week…

Protocol News

• As Farming Round #8 got underway Saturday, Elk launched on 6 chains: OKExChain (OEC), Hoo Smart Chain (HSC), KCC, Elastos, Moonriver, and Harmony
• Elk farms now feature perpetual contracts, so users no longer have to withdraw and re-stake every 42 days
• Network Milestone🎉: 10 million ELK have now been transferred over ElkNet
• A brand new ElkNet dashboard site launched, allowing users to view ElkNet transfers and analytics

Community Happenings

• YetiSwap (Avalanche, DEX/NFT market) entered the Lodge for an AMA on Elk Discord
• The Elk dApp is now available through the Elastos Essentials wallet
• Episode 6 of All About Crypto, the Elk.Finance podcast, delved into the long-term vision for the Elk blockchain

We told you there would be some #Elktober surprises, didn’t we?

Turns out your boyfriend’s sourdough starter wasn’t the only thing that doubled in size over the weekend… On Saturday night, as the community geared up for the start of a new farming round, our dev team quietly deployed ElkNet on 6 new EVM-compatible chains. We decided to let the community discover for themselves rather than pushing a big announcement, and it only took a few minutes for people to start noticing that the list of networks on ElkNet had grown twice as long.

With these 6 additions, the list of networks connected by the Elk blockchain now stands at 12 (and Q4 is just beginning…👀). A few have been trending lately, while some of the others are just starting to emerge on the scene. In every case, we’re excited to be among the first (in some cases the first) bridges connecting these chains to the broader DeFi world.

How were we able to accomplish this? In the “Beyond the Bridge” article from a few weeks ago, we made a big deal about the “Exit Liquidity Problem” that conventional bridges face. Maintaining bridges for networks that are still in their start-up phase becomes nearly impossible due to the demands of exit liquidity. Eventually, this forces bridge protocols to shut off service, in many cases leaving users who placed their trust in their service without an easy off-ramp. (Note: this isn’t a hypothetical — just look at the history of some of the popular bridge protocols, and you’ll find examples of lapses in service to one or more networks).

Elk doesn’t require exit liquidity to function, so there is no risk of getting stranded.

That’s not just great for Elk; it’s great for everyone.

• Updates with resources (approved RPCs, etc) for new chains
• Stability upgrades and optimizations to ElkNet based on the new chain launches
• #Elk17
• An exciting network-linked incentive
• The final week of Elk Season 2, and some Halloween fun