Allbridge to become the first token bridge for the Stacks token

Published at: Feb. 9, 2022

Multi-chain token bridge Allbridge will become the first to offer Stacks (STX) transfers as part of a partnership with Bitcoin software developer Daemon Technologies.

STX is the native token for the Stacks Layer-1 blockchain which settles transactions on the Bitcoin (BTC) network. It currently has a market cap of $1.7 billion. Allbridge currently serves 12 blockchains including Ethereum, various Ethereum-compatible sidechains, Solana, Terra, and others.

A token bridge allows crypto from one blockchain to be transferred to another one. The new bridge will allow transfers between Stacks and all chains served by Allbridge.

The Stacks Bridge will go live in Q2 2022. It will initially only support transfers of STX, but is planned to support transfers of other Stacks protocol SIP010 tokens such as ALEX and the USDA stablecoin. There are also plans to enable NFT transfers between chains.

In a Feb. 10 announcement, Allbridge co-founder Andriy Velykyv expressed how the partnership will help serve the crypto community’s need for access to the Bitcoin ecosystem.

“Creating a bridge that allows for people to interact with Bitcoin-powered applications will help streamline processes that were previously only limited to a single chain and ecosystem.”

Daemon Technologies is providing a $140,000 grant to Allbridge to help facilitate growth of the bridge. Daemon Technologies founder Xan Ditkoff told Cointelegraph that partnering with Allbridge to create the Stacks Bridge will “allow users to come and use the assets within the network for whatever the use case is.”

Ditkoff illustrated what he sees as the beneficial interplay between Stacks’ utilization of the Bitcoin network’s security for transaction settlement and separate blockchains for higher throughput. He said: “It’s good for people who want to transact on faster networks, then bring their assets onto Bitcoin for security.”

The security of token bridges has been in the spotlight this month. In the past 2 weeks, there have been three hacks of token bridge smart contracts. On Feb. 3, $321 million in wETH was minted through the exploit of a bug on Wormhole’s smart contracts on Solana, which created an inorganic surplus of tokens on the blockchain.

Related: Major crypto firms and groups form coalition aimed at promoting 'market integrity'

Ditkoff brushed off security concerns related to the Allbridge token bridge. He said, “We have a lot of confidence in the Allbridge team.”

“It’s easy for people to forget that these bridges are so new. How long have people been coding with Solana’s VM? Everything is still at the bleeding edge.”

Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin made an eerily well-timed warning to the crypto community by writing in an early January Reddit post that there are “fundamental security limits of bridges.”

Ditkoff refuted Vitalik’s statement in saying, “I have a hard time seeing a future when bridges are not a huge part of the ecosystem,” and continued:

“The logic behind Vitalik’s words would be that everything settles on one chain that is optimized for the one thing that (Proof-of-Work) is made for: byzantine fault tolerance. Bitcoin doing that better than anything in human history will have an impact on whether one chain eventually dominates.”
Tags
Bitcoin
Tokens
Security
Related Posts
Swiss Private Bank Says 400 New Clients Demanding Crypto Products
Swiss private bank Maerki Baumann has had a deluge of 400 new clients wanting to tap its future blockchain offerings since it revealed its interest in the sector. Swiss Info reported on Aug. 22 that the Zurich-based institution — which has $8.2 billion in assets under management but faces stiff market competition and an erosion of its margins — has opted to embrace blockchain to rejuvenate its business. Bid to be “the go-to private bank” in Swiss crypto In an interview with Swiss Info, Maerki Baumann CEO Stephen Zwahlen said that the bank’s revelation it would be launching a crypto …
Adoption / Aug. 22, 2019
Is There Such a Thing as a SEC Compliant ICO? Filecoin Thinks So - Raises $52 Mln
The recent SEC ruling that Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) will have to comply with securities registration laws (if the tokens they are selling are considered equity) has resulted in apprehensions that ICOs may dry up in the US. However, Filecoin has raised $52 mln in a pre-ICO sale, as a prelude to what is claimed to be a SEC compliant ICO. What is Filecoin? Filecoin, developed by Protocol Labs, is a decentralized storage network. The network is expected to give owners of unused storage a means to monetize their storage capacity. It is also expected to bring down the costs …
Bitcoin / Aug. 6, 2017
Seven common mistakes crypto investors and traders make
Investing in cryptocurrencies and digital assets is now easier than ever before. Online brokers, centralized exchanges and even decentralized exchanges give investors the flexibility to buy and sell tokens without going through a traditional financial institution and the hefty fees and commissions that come along with them. Cryptocurrencies were designed to operate in a decentralized manner. This means that while they’re an innovative avenue for global peer-to-peer value transfers, there are no trusted authorities involved that can guarantee the security of your assets. Your losses are your responsibility once you take your digital assets into custody. Here we’ll explore some …
Adoption / March 31, 2022
Has New York state gone astray in its pursuit of crypto fraud?
The Empire State made two appearances on the regulatory stage last week, and neither was entirely reassuring. On April 25, bill S8839 was proposed in the New York State (NYS) Senate that would criminalize “rug pulls” and other crypto frauds, while two days later, the state’s Assembly passed a ban on non-green Bitcoin (BTC) mining. The first event was met with some ire from industry representatives, while the second drew negative reviews, too. However, this may have been more of a reflex response given that the “ban” was temporary and principally aimed at energy providers. The fraud bill, sponsored by …
Adoption / May 2, 2022
Crypto for foreign trade: What do we know about Iran’s new strategy
With the Trade Ministry officially approving the use of cryptocurrencies for foreign trade, Iran will become the first-of-a-kind adopter in the world. The obvious problem with the news is that the country’s innovative policy obviously aims at circumventing financial sanctions that have been hampering its participation in the global economy for many years. These circumstances set an ambivalent tone for Iran’s experiment — while for some, it could prove crypto’s emancipating ability to shirk the all-too-real hegemony of the United States political will and international financial institutions that enforce it, hardline crypto skeptics could get the proof they need for …
Decentralization / Sept. 15, 2022