Beyond Interoperability: Wanchain’s 2023 in Review

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Wanchain

5 min readDec 31, 2023

Against the backdrop of an ever-changing regulatory landscape, Wanchain’s 2023 was marked by numerous technical breakthroughs, multiple product launches and several strategic collaborations with some of the industry’s greatest innovators. The adoption of Wanchain’s cross-chain solutions also experienced unprecedented growth, setting new benchmarks in both transaction volume and total value of cross-chain transfers. As we bid farewell to this remarkable year, let us reflect on what will undoubtedly be remembered as a milestone year for Wanchain.

2023: The year XFlows became XFlows

Though officially launched in late 2022, 2023 saw Wanchain’s XFlows firmly establish itself as one of Wanchain’s flagship protocols. XFlows now enables non-custodial, native-to-native cross-chain transformations for 4 of the blockchain industry’s most important assets — BTC, ETH, USDC, and USDT — across 12+ networks and 130+ routes. True to Wanchain’s legacy as the premier provider of heterogeneous blockchain interoperability solutions, XFlows launched on multiple non-EVM networks including Bitcoin, Tron and Polkadot this year. XFlows also added support for prominent synthetics like WBTC on Ethereum, BTC.b on Avalanche, xcUSDT on Polkadot via Astar, WETH on Polygon and BNB Chain’s suite of Binance-pegged assets, making it the most flexible canonical bridge on the market. To date, no other decentralised bridge can match XFlows’ unique mix of assets and slippage-free cross-chain transformations. Expect XFlows to deploy on additional networks, with deeper liquidity, to maintain its momentum in 2024.

2023: The year of continuous improvements

Wanchain’s unwavering commitment to decentralised blockchain interoperability was evident throughout the year, marked by a string of incremental improvements to the industry’s premier decentralised blockchain interoperability solution. Notably, a significant upgrade to Wanchain’s Bitcoin Bridge introduced full Taproot support and Schnorr Signatures, boosting the security, efficiency and flexibility of cross-chain BTC transactions without sacrificing decentralisation. Additionally, a standardised Multi-Party Computation (MPC) signature interface was introduced to make it easier to integrate new public blockchains without requiring Wanchain Bridge Node operators to upgrade their nodes. On that note, numerous public networks joined Wanchain’s cross-chain infrastructure including Astar, f(x)Core, Gather Network, Horizen EON, Metis, Optimism, Telos, VinuChain and Cardano! In 2024, expect further improvements to the WanBridge (including a brand new UX!) as well as more public network integrations to support the expansion of XFlows.

2023: The year Wanchain made Cardano interoperable

Wanchain’s reputation for enabling interoperability between non-EVM networks, such as Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, the Polkadot Relay Chain, the XRP Ledger and more, is well-earned. In a monumental move in 2023, Wanchain deployed the first-ever decentralised, non-custodial cross-chain bridges connecting the Cardano mainnet to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Arbitrum, Astar, Avalanche, BNB Chain, OKT Chain, Optimism, Polygon, Tron and the Wanchain L1 blockchain. This development opened the floodgates for the billions of dollars of liquidity on EVM chains to be used in Cardano’s booming, yet underserved, DeFi ecosystem. Wanchain’s Cardano Bridge, developed with support from IOG, the company responsible for the development of the Cardano blockchain itself, and audited by Anastasia Labs, has been well received. Thus far, millions in BTC, DAI, ETH, USDC, USDT and WAN have crossed the bridge in large part due to collaborations with Cardano-native protocols like Liqwid Finance, Wingriders and Astarter, amongst others. Next year, expect more collaborations with Cardano-native protocols, as well as upgrades to the Cardano Bridge itself. Right now, Maestro, a cutting edge blockchain development platform, and Wanchain are proposing to leverage their best-in-class expertise to build a cross-chain solution that enables users to interact with any Cardano Dapp directly from their EVM wallets, including Metamask.

2023: The year Circle and Wanchain teamed up

Wanchain was one of the earliest supporters of USDC, originally making USDC cross-chain compatible in 2019. Back then, USDC was governed by the Centre Consortium, founded by Circle and Coinbase. Earlier this year, crediting growing regulator clarity for stablecoins, Centre was dissolved and Circle installed as the sole issuer of USDC. This year also marked the launch of Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CCTP), an on-chain utility that burns and mints native USDC on supported blockchains. Just like in 2019, Wanchain was an early supporter, integrating CCTP seamlessly into USDC XFlows and serving as an official launch partner. Today, Wanchain supports CCTP on multiple chains including Arbitrum, Avalanche, Ethereum, Optimism, Polygon and more! Expect for Wanchain to continue to support CCTP throughout 2024.

2023: The year Wanchain took off

In 2023, the Wanchain cross-chain ecosystem experienced consistent month-over-month growth. Spearheaded by choice 3rd party integrations with the likes of Polygon’s Wallet Suite and the OKX DEX bridge aggregator, Wanchain’s cross-chain bridges reached new all-time highs in both transaction volume and total value of cross-chain transfers. This year also witnessed the highly anticipated launch of XStake, which debuted with two WAN staking options, the introduction of WanAI, as well as the expansion of BTC XFlows to 5 new chains, ETH XFlows to 7 new chains, USDC XFlows to 3 new chains, and USDT XFlows to 3 new chains. Community development was also active this year. Hackers participating in hackathons in both the U.S. and India experimented with development using Wanchain’s cross-chain tech stack (🦜), while community developers launched new protocols — as with RexDex, Elk Finance, DEGA and others — and upgraded existing ones — as with WanSwap V2. The Zoo Ecosystem also remained a hotbed of activity, launching multiple new builds for Zoo Racers, debuting new games like Bang Bang, Poker ZooGenes Hold’em, Wild Kingdom, and ZooQuiz AI, and introducing several quality of life improvements like InstantPlayPass and Social Login. 2024 promises to be even busier as XFlows will expand to new chains, XStake will introduce additional staking opportunities, and new DAPPs will launch on the Wanchain L1 blockchain.

2024: The year Wanchain takes the next step

This past year stands as a resounding testament to our collective and unwavering commitment to push technological boundaries and shape the future of blockchain interoperability. As we look ahead to 2024, optimism for both the mission and the project shines brightly. Expect the continued tethering of Wanchain’s decentralised blockchain interoperability solution, the Wanchain L1 blockchain, and the WAN coin with the rollout of bridge fees. Expect the integration of new networks, both EVMs and non-EVMs, into Wanchain’s industry-leading cross-chain infrastructure. Expect the further expansion of XFlows and XStake. Expect new innovative cross-chain products (🦜). These are just a few of the exciting developments Wanchain has in store for 2024. There are huge developments on the horizon. We are all connected. And we will build the future together.

About Wanchain

We are all connected — Wanchain, the Wide Area Network chain, is the world’s premier decentralised blockchain interoperability solution. Our mission is to drive blockchain adoption through interoperability by building fully decentralised bridges that connect the world’s many siloed blockchain networks. This cross-chain infrastructure empowers developers to build truly decentralised cross-chain applications to power the future of Web3.