Varen to Join Forces with Ren on Cross-Chain Infrastructure

Expanding developer infrastructure & cross-chain services

Published in

Ren Protocol

3 min readJan 17, 2022

We are excited to announce that Varen, the team behind VarenX, will join forces with Ren and its community to build out tooling and infrastructure for the cross-chain future. Ancillary tooling for cross-chain products is still nascent, so combining efforts and leaning on each project’s strengths is the next logical step for expansion, as we drive the cross-chain future to the next level.

Development Goals in 2022

The main VarenX development goals in 2022 are:

Host-to-Host Support
Layer 2 Blockchain Support
Gas-as-a-Service (GaaS)
VarenX-as-a-Service (VaaS)
Co-development of the Ren Labs ecosystem

Host to Host: We will be working closely with the Varen team to integrate the host-to-host functionality into VarenX v2, of which you can find a full description of the features here.

Layer 2 Blockchain Support: In addition, we will be focusing on integrating popular Layer 2’s such as Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, and Arbitrum. The overall goal is to enable users to complete cross-chain swaps on the chain with the lowest fees possible.

GaaS: The next feature to be added to VarenX is Gas-as-a-Service (GaaS). This will enable users to execute cross-chain swaps on VarenX without ever having to have ETH (for GAS) by integrating the OpenZeppelin Gas Station Network (GSN).

VaaS: Another aim for this year is to offer VarenX-as-a-service (VaaS), giving applications easy access to the power of cross-chain DeFi. VaaS essentially allows VarenX cross-chain smart contracts (i.e. 1-click cross-chain swaps) paired with RenJS to be used and integrated by third-party apps. By allowing other dApps to use this technology, VaaS expands our user bases and generates greater velocity for the Ren and Varen networks.

Ren Labs: Finally, we will also be focusing on the challenges of cross-chain liquidity with Varen. Learning from the experiences of other DeFi projects, we are looking to help develop an interoperability layer that can access liquidity across chains. This year we will work with Varen on this challenging topic.

With the above in mind, Varen will be a core facet of the UI/UX cross-chain strategy within the Ren ecosystem. Having Varen assist with and build dApps is great leverage for expanding and showcasing Ren’s composability.

Looking Forward | Varen joins forces with Ren

Building all of these various initiatives will take greater coordination, so the two organizations will deepen their relationship beyond the current partnership structure. Varen will work much closer to the internal Ren development structure and will have first access to new RenJS code; sharing resources where applicable, taking on additional frontend development responsibilities of Ren products and helping to build out a Ren-focused cross-chain liquidity strategy.

The two teams will also be coordinating with and assisting other Ren Labs projects such as Catalog Finance, to ensure that we always build in synergy and unison with other Ren Labs teams, with the ultimate goal of growing adoption of Ren-built dApps and technology. Building the cross-chain future is a big effort and collaboration is key, so we are excited to see this effort come to fruition!

Onwards and upwards,
— Ren Team

About Varen Finance

Varen is a community-governed DeFi protocol building user-friendly products and services.

About Ren

Ren is an open protocol that enables the movement of value between blockchains.