Overview
Wormhole is a protocol for message passing between blockchains, facilitating communication without being a blockchain itself. It supports a variety of applications, including cross-chain exchanges, governance and gaming, all by allowing assets and information to flow across different networks. It's not a token bridge, but protocols built on Wormhole can serve this purpose. Wormhole supports an expanding list of blockchains, underpinning a broad ecosystem of cross-chain interactions.
Key aspects of Wormhole include:
- Cross-Chain Transfers: The protocol supports the movement of tokens, NFTs and other digital assets between blockchains, enhancing the functionality of DeFi applications by allowing assets to be utilized across diverse platforms.
- Smart Contracts Communication: Wormhole enables interaction between smart contracts on different blockchains, crucial for the operation of complex dApps that require resources from multiple networks.
- Supported Chains: Initially focusing on bridging Ethereum and Solana, Wormhole has broadened its support to include more blockchains.
- Use Cases: Wormhole's technology underpins various applications, from cross-chain exchanges and lending platforms to interoperable gaming and metaverse projects.
Wormhole contributes to the evolution towards a multi-chain cryptocurrency ecosystem by addressing some of the scalability and interoperability challenges.
Wormhole announces their own native token $W
On February 7th Wormhole announced that they will be releasing a native token $W. Initially, the W token will be utilised for protocol governance through on-chain voting. Its potential future applications encompass adjusting fees across products, changing the token's utility and design, upgrading smart contracts, modifying rate limits, expanding the Guardian set and adding or removing chains. A total of 1.7billion tokens ( 17% of total supply) will be airdropped to the community, the snapshot has likely already occurred and the team has yet to release the specific qualification criteria. Below details the full token distribution;
The initial token distribution starts with 1.1 billion tokens for the community through an airdrop, followed by 500 million for ecosystem development and incubation and 200 million reserved for the foundation's treasury. Approximately 82% of $W is locked for a period of four years as it vests according to the schedule below:
We are also able to ascertain a look into prospective $W trading prices, albeit volume is too low to give a highly accurate estimation. WhalesMarket, an OTC desk, has facilitated an insight to this data as shown below.
At present, the average bid price stands at $0.48, suggesting a circulating market capitalization of $864 million and a fully diluted valuation of $4.8 billion.
Disclaimer: This research report is exactly that — a research report. It is not intended to serve as financial advice, nor should you blindly assume that any of the information is accurate without confirming through your own research. Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, and other digital assets are incredibly risky and nothing in this report should be considered an endorsement to buy or sell any asset. Never invest more than you are willing to lose and understand the risk that you are taking. Do your own research. All information in this report is for educational purposes only and should not be the basis for any investment decisions that you make.