Short about: Zenlink

Polkadot News
Polkadot News
Published in
5 min readJul 5, 2021

What is Zenlink?

With the further development of the Polkadot ecology and obvious future boost of different DeFi projects inside it, the whole ecosystem will probably face up with the liquidity fragmentation on different parachains. Here comes Zenlink, acting as a DEX hub for all the scattered liquidity.

Zenlink is a Polkadot-based cross-chain DEX network that consists of several parts: Zenlink Protocol, Zenlink DEX module, DEX Aggregator and DEX Dapp.

Zenlink DEX Protocol,DEX Module and Aggregator

Zenlink DEX Protocol is the underlying common cross-chain DEX protocol built by Zenlink using Substrate and based on the XCMP protocol. It is the most core part of the Zenlink ecology.

DEX module is an implementation of the Zenlink DEX Protocol, which is a unified module that can be easily deployed into any Substrate-based parachain.

At the same time Zenlink will create a DEX Aggregator that will enable the liquidity sharing between the DEX Modules on different parachains. Thus Zenlink Aggreagator will be able to link all DEX projects in the Polkadot ecology in a united liquidity network.

More than that Zenlink DEX Aggregator will integrate the liquidity and pricing of all kinds of DEX (similar to 1inch.io), compare the optimal prices in different trading protocols, and provide users with optimal trading and minimum slippage.

Zenlink Whitepaper v0.4

In addition to Module, Zenlink DEX Protocol also implements EVM and WASM versions to maximize the applicability of the protocol, so it will be suitable for a variety of different scenarios.

Zenlink DEX WASM version is the original contract implementation of Polkadot, and it is also the main contract deployment mode of Polkadot network in the future. The Zenlink DEX WASM version has the ability to deploy to WASM contract platform in the first place.

Zenlink DEX EVM version is a contractual deployment mode adopted in order to be compatible with the operation of the Ethereum EVM, and it is also a transition scheme adopted in the initial stage of the Polkadot network. The Zenlink DEX EVM version implements all the functions of the protocol layer, complements the perfect testing process, and can also be deployed to the parachain of EVM contracts at the first time.

Grants and investments

Zenlink is a receiver of two Web3 Foundation Grants to develope a prototype of a cross-chain DEX module for the Polkadot network and to develop a smart contract implementation (the technical solutions for anyone building a complex decentralized exchange using Substrate technology that has been already developed and now is open source)

Zenlink secured a $1.1 million angel round led by Hashkey, Continue Capital, IOSG Ventures, D1 Ventures, and Youbi Capital.

PLO as mining: Zenlink SlotVault

Zenlink aims to solve the problem of liquidity fragmentation between different parachains, but there is no need to the project to secure a parachain slot. Thus Zenlink will not participate in parachain auctions as a bidder.

Nevertheless Zenlink offers a solution to the future parachains candidates that will help them collaborate while performing crowdloan campaigns and will airdrop ZLK (and other tokens) to all users who lock KSM/DOT through Zenlink SlotVault.

Zenlink SlotVault implies the several roles, and each of them will earn some benefits:

  • Crowdloan sponsors are the parachain projects that aim to win a parachain auction. Participating in Slot Vault can get more crowdloan support from projects and users to improve the success rate of slot auctions;
  • Crowdloan supporters are the non-parachain and parachain projects that have no plans to auction at the moment. Supporting the Crowdloan sponsors through the Zenlink SlotVault they can gain more exposure and /or complete initial distribution of tokens.
  • Users in the Polkadot ecosystem that will learn more about Polkadot eco-projects and receive multiple token benefits at the same time.

The users’ pledged DOT/KSM will go directly to Polkadot’s official crowdloan module, so no funds will pass through the Zenlink SlotVault platform, guaranteeing the safety and transparency of all the users’ funds.

Zenlink SlotVault & Bifrost SALP

Bifrost SALP is an innovative solution for releasing the liquidity of pledged in crowdloans DOT/KSM with the help of two kinds of derivatives: vsDOT/vsKSM and vsBond.

vsDOT/vsKSM is a fungible token, which represents a voucher of a user’s contribution to a parachain auction. The voucher can be traded at any time or cooperated with vsBond for 1-to-1 peg redemption. vsBond is a token representing the auction reward and lease period of different parachains, which smooths out the problem of different reward strategies between parachains. Meantime, vsBond can execute transactions through Bifrost’s built-in vsBond market, without having to consider liquidity issues.

SALP will be available to users once Bifrost manages to win parachain slot auction. What SALP is in detail.

In collaboration with Bifrost Zenlink SlotVault will make it possible for users to contribute to crowdloans in the SlotVault platform via Bifrost’s SAPL and at the same time Zenlink DEX Module will be deployed to Bifrost parachain, thus the vsKSM/KSM trading pairs will be available on Zenlink at the first time, so that users can complete the Contribute-Swap (crowd loan pledge-trade) process in one stop.

Zenlink DAO

Recently the Zenlink team announced the launch of ZenlinkDAO and started the engagement of the initial ZenlinkDAO Governance Committee. The Committee will have a number of initial governance member seats, one of which will be held by the Zenlink Foundation. Other members will be first chosen by the Zenlink Foundation; strategic partners, investors and active community members are preferred. Know more and apply.

The first batch of ZenlinkDAO Initial Governance Board Members was already announced.

Tokenomics

Native token: ZLK

Tokenomics is not published yet (this section will be update lately)

Learn more about Zenlink:

| Website | Whitepaper | Github | Twitter| Medium | Telegram | Announcements Channel |

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