Cardano added to Wanchain’s cross-chain infrastructure, USDC and USDT come to Cardano

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Wanchain

4 min readAug 8, 2023

TL;DR Wanchain has deployed new decentralised, non-custodial cross-chain bridges connecting the Cardano mainnet to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Arbitrum, Astar, Avalanche, BNB Chain, OKT Chain, Optimism, Polygon, Tron and Wanchain. Users can now use ADA on Ethereum, and BTC, ETH, USDC, USDT and WAN on Cardano.

Wanchain, the global leader for decentralised blockchain interoperability solutions and maker of the first public decentralised cross-chain bridge, is pleased to announce the addition of Cardano to Wanchain’s cross-chain infrastructure. Wanchain’s Cardano Bridges connect the Cardano mainnet to Bitcoin, Ethereum, Arbitrum, Astar, Avalanche, BNB Chain, Optimism, Polygon, Tron, and other prominent public networks.

Wanchain is a project formed of two pillars: a sustainable Layer 1 PoS blockchain and a decentralised wide area network of blockchains. The Wanchain Layer 1 PoS blockchain is a full Ethereum-like environment that works with industry-standard Ethereum tools, DAPPs, and protocols. Wanchain’s wide area network of blockchains is a decentralised system of direct, non-custodial cross-chain bridges that connect both EVM and non-EVM networks without requiring any centralised intermediaries. Currently, more than 25 public networks are connected by Wanchain’s wide area network of blockchains including but not limited to Arbitrum, Astar, Avalanche C-Chain, Bitcoin, BNB Chain, Ethereum, Litecoin, Optimism, Polkadot Relay Chain, Polygon, XRP Ledger, Tron and now Cardano.

Cardano Bridges: Advanced Interoperability

Powered by decentralised, non-custodial, bi-directional cross-chain bridges, Wanchain’s Cardano Bridges enable greater interoperability between networks and offer a huge influx of new assets and liquidity. Wanchain’s Cardano Bridges enable numerous assets including ADA, other native Cardano tokens, all ERC20 tokens, and several other notable assets to move seamlessly between Cardano, any EVM-based network, and select non-EVM networks.

On day 1, the following routes and assets are supported:

Cardano <> Bitcoin: $BTC
Cardano <> Ethereum: $ADA, $BTC, $ETH, $USDC, $USDT
Cardano <> Arbitrum: $USDC, $USDT
Cardano <> Astar: $USDT
Cardano <> Avalanche: $BTC, $USDC, $USDT
Cardano <> BNB Chain: $BTC, $USDC, $USDT
Cardano <> OKT Network: $USDT
Cardano <> Optimism: $USDC, $USDT
Cardano <> Polygon: $USDC, $USDT
Cardano <> Tron: $USDC, $USDT
Cardano <> Wanchain: $ADA, $BTC, $ETH, $USDC, $USDT, $WAN

The Cardano policy id for these assets is 25c5de5f5b286073c593edfd77b48abc7a48e5a4f3d4cd9d428ff935.

Other routes and assets will be added over time. Specific routes and assets can be requested by anyone at any time.

Stable Opportunities for Web3

Wanchain’s Cardano Bridges create new opportunities for developers and users as ADA and other native Cardano tokens can be used with any Web3 application on any EVM-compatible network. Further to this, ADA, BTC, ETH, USDC, USDT, and WAN can now all be brought to Cardano. Of note, this is the first time that fiat-backed stablecoins, in the form of USDT and USDC, are available on the Cardano mainnet.

The Cardano Bridges are a milestone project for Wanchain, which champions innovation and interoperability in blockchain. Given the fundamental differences in the Cardano network from other public blockchains, the Wanchain team needed to fully develop Haskell smart contracts which support cross-chain transactions; they also upgraded the Wanchain bridge nodes to be able to construct UTXO transactions to call Cardano smart contracts. Wanchain also enlisted Input Output to make necessary changes to Cardano by coordinating internal efforts to add native support for a Schnorr signature and Secp256k1 curve. You can read more about these efforts here and here.

Looking Forward

Now that the Cardano Bridges have connected the Cardano mainnet to Wanchain’s wide area network of public blockchains, Wanchain’s future interoperability solutions will also be available on Cardano, including Wanchain’s upcoming decentralised general message passing platform.

The Cardano Bridges are already open and anyone interested can learn more about the many advantages here.

How to Complete a Cross-Chain Transaction?

All cross-chain transactions from EVM networks follow the same process. A full guide can be found here.

For transactions from Bitcoin, please refer to this dedicated BTC guide.

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.