Original Author: flowie, ChainCatcher

With the launch of the cross-chain communication protocol Connext and the start of a large-scale airdrop, the latest layout and potential opportunities in this sector have attracted great attention.

According to the encrypted data platform RootData, cross-chain communication projects have been among the top searches in the past week, and the cross-chain communication track has also seen investments from well-known investment institutions. It should be emphasized that cross-chain communication protocols have broader use cases and more composability compared to simple cross-chain bridge applications. Therefore, they have gained greater narrative space in the crypto market.

For example, the cross-chain protocol Socket Protocol recently announced a $5 million funding round with participation from Coinbase Ventures and Framework Ventures. In August, the interoperable Layer 1 network ZetaChain announced a $27 million equity financing round with participation from Blockchain.com, Human Capital, VY Capital, and Cloud Nine Capital. Web3 operating protocol dappOS, incubated by Binance Labs, announced a seed funding round led by IDG Capital and Sequoia Capital China, with participation from OKX Ventures, HashKey Capital, KuCoin Ventures, Gate Labs, and many other well-known investment institutions.

The cross-chain sector has always been highly competitive, and in such a competitive environment, which cross-chain projects have gained the favor of investors this year? What are their latest developments and airdrop plans? This article provides a brief overview.

Socket Protocol

Socket Protocol was founded in 2021 as an interoperable protocol for secure and efficient cross-chain data and asset transfer, allowing developers to build interoperable applications using Socket. The interoperability stack of Socket includes two key components: Socket Liquid Layer (SocketLL) and Socket Data Layer (SocketDL). SocketLL supports efficient cross-chain asset transfer, while SocketDL supports secure cross-chain data transmission.

Since its establishment, Socket has processed $3.5 billion in transaction volume, with a total of over 2.5 million transactions. Socket primarily serves projects in the wallet and DeFi sectors, such as One Key, Synthetix, Premia, Swapr, dHedge, Rubicon Finance, etc. Socket has disclosed three rounds of funding, totaling $12 million, with investors including Coinbase Ventures, Framework Ventures, Folius Ventures, etc.

Recently, Socket has also launched the cross-chain aggregator Bungee, aiming to address the need for frequent token cross-chain transfers by users. Bungee currently supports cross-chain transfer and exchange of assets on Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism, Fantom, and Polygon zkEVM. However, Socket has not yet released its token economic model and token issuance plan.

ZetaChain

ZetaChain was founded in 2021, with its core contributors being former employees of Cosmos, Consensys, Coinbase, and Buzzfeed. It is an L1 blockchain compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), built using the Cosmos SDK and leveraging the Tendermint consensus mechanism, allowing developers to build interoperable decentralized applications (dApps) across any chain, including Bitcoin.

According to the official website, ZetaChain network has over 150 contributors from around the world and has deployed over 27,000 dApp contracts. Its testnet has attracted over 1.9 million users who have completed over 14 million transactions. In addition, ZetaChain raised $27 million in equity financing from investors such as Blockchain.com, Human Capital, VY Capital, and Cloud Nine Capital in August. In April of this year, ZetaChain launched a $5 million developer grant program to incentivize ecosystem development. ZetaChain has not yet announced any listing or airdrop plans.

DappOS

DappOS was founded in 2022 and is a Web3 operating protocol aimed at reducing the complexity of interacting with encrypted infrastructure.

This week, following the release of Connext, dappOS launched the V2 testnet version and introduced new features like the decentralized perpetual contract protocol Perpetual Protocol, which provides a user experience similar to CeFi while maintaining full decentralization. It also incorporates features such as unified accounts, support for task dependencies, and a new bidding system. This move has been interpreted by many crypto users as a hint of an upcoming airdrop.

It is worth mentioning that the investment team behind dappOS is strong. It was selected for the fifth season incubation program of Binance incubator in November 2022 and received Pre-Seed investment from Binance Labs in June 2023. It completed its seed round financing in July of this year, with a valuation of $50 million. The leading investors were IDG Capital and Sequoia China, and the participating investors included OKX Ventures, HashKey Capital, KuCoin Ventures, TronDao Ventures, Gate Labs, Taihill Ventures, Symbolic Capital, Foresight Ventures, BlueRun Ventures, Mirana Ventures, and Leland Ventures. In addition, dappOS is related to popular concepts such as account abstraction, chain abstraction, and intent abstraction this year.

Catalyst

Catalyst was founded in 2022 with the aim of providing permissionless cross-chain liquidity infrastructure through simple design. It achieves cross-chain transfer of tokens by passing the cross-chain needs of the original chain to the target chain through cross-chain messaging. This week, Catalyst announced the launch of its testnet incentive program and stated on Twitter that it will also release a major update in September.

It is reported that Catalyst completed a $4.2 million seed round financing in April of this year. Spartan Group led the investment, and participating investors included Foresight Ventures, Robot Ventures, Alchemy Ventures, HashKey Capital, Circle Ventures, and Superscrypt, the web3 fund under Temasek.

LayerZero

This year in April, cross-chain bridge LayerZero secured $120 million in Series B financing at a valuation of $3 billion. After this round of financing, LayerZero has raised a total of $315 million. Subsequently, LayerZero saw a significant increase in user expectations for its airdrop, resulting in a surge in transaction volume. However, its security has repeatedly been called into question, and the official Stargate has been criticized as a "cross-chain assassin".

As of now, LayerZero supports over 30 public chains, including leading Layer 2 chains like Arb and Optimism, as well as emerging Layer 2 chains like Base and Linea. Although there has been high demand for coin issuance and airdrops from LayerZero, after nearly six months, there is still no specific plan.

LI.FI

LI.FI was established in 2021 and is a bridging and aggregation protocol with DEX connectivity and cross-chain data messaging capabilities. All functionalities will be available at the API/contract level and can be directly integrated into the widgets of other developers' products. LI.FI raised $17.5 million in Series A financing in March this year, with participation from CoinFund, Temasek's web3 fund Superscrypt, Circle Ventures, and others. In July last year, LI.FI received a strategic financing of $550 million with participation from 1kx, Dragonfly, Coinbase Ventures, and others.

Recently, cross-chain transaction aggregator LI.FI announced the launch of Loyalty Pass, a solution tailored specifically for users participating in the LI.FI ecosystem.

TeleportDAO

TeleportDAO was established in 2022 as a trustless interoperability protocol that provides infrastructure for developers to build cross-chain applications. With TeleportDAO, users can move any data between blockchains, such as contract calls and other messages, or assets like tokens and NFTs. In March of this year, TeleportDAO completed a $2.5 million seed round of financing, with a valuation of $20 million. Investors included DefinanceX, Quantstamp, CoinList, Gate Labs, and others.

TeleportDAO has disclosed its economic model plan in the whitepaper. The initial token supply is set at 1,000,000,000 TDT, with 20% allocated to the early TeleportDOA team, 5% allocated to core contributors, and 4.10% allocated to a group of early supporters with a 2-year unlocking schedule and initial 6-month lock-up and 12-month transfer restrictions. 50.90% of the funds are allocated to the network fund to stimulate ecosystem development.

Conclusion

In addition to the above-mentioned cross-chain communication projects that have received financing this year, there were also projects such as Orbiter Finance, Hyperlane, Multievent and others that received investments from well-known institutions at the end of last year. There have also been continuous rumors about their token issuance and airdrops. For example, Orbiter Finance completed a $3.2 million seed funding at the end of last year with a valuation of $40 million. Its investors include Tiger Global, Matrixport Ventures, A&T Capital, StarkWare, Loopring, Amber Group, imToken Ventures, Mask Network, Zonff Partners, CatcherVC, GGV Capital, and many other capital backers.

According to the official introduction on Orbiter Medium, Orbiter aims not only to be an L2 cross-chain bridge but also to serve as the infrastructure for Ethereum scaling, expanding into cross-chain communication and implementing zero-knowledge algorithms, EIP-4337 (account abstraction), recursive proof, and message synchronization to enhance the overall availability and adoption of the Ethereum network. Although there have been continuous rumors about Orbiter's token issuance and airdrops, Orbiter has not yet launched its native token for the project, and the official has not disclosed any news regarding token issuance.

Hyperlane was established in 2022. In September of last year, Hyperlane announced the completion of a $18.5 million financing round, led by Crypto Investor Variant, with participation from Galaxy Digital, CoinFund, Circle, Figment, Blockdaemon, Kraken Ventures, and NFX. Recently, Hyperlane announced that it will release the V3 mainnet list in mid-September, but it has not yet announced any plans for token issuance or airdrops. Multievent, founded in 2022, received investment from Binance Labs in October last year. However, there is currently limited information on its official website and Twitter, and no whitepaper or detailed team information has been released yet.