General Celer Update
Let’s first have a look at our analytics page on https://cbridge-analytics.celer.network/!
We have achieved almost $5.9B transaction volume on Celer cBridge. TVL is now $735M, higher than ever! cBridge has safely served close to 130K users so far. It is of course amazing growth and we are all super stoked to see that.
But as you might know, if you have been following recent news, you probably saw the Wormhole hack and Axie Infinity bridge hack. People are generally nervous about bridges and some even say the future is not going to be cross-chain. We disagree, here is our take on things: https://twitter.com/CelerNetwork/status/1509716688215846922
On the security front, Celer has been maintaining a flawless record. We believe there are lots of security measures that every bridge should to take into consideration, both on the protocol side and also on the implementation side. Celer is the only interoperability platform that comes with two built-in security options: One is the Cosmos L1 blockchain level security and the other is optimistic rollup-like security. This fundamentally prevents tragedies like the Ronin and Wormhole hack where a single transaction can drain the entire blockchain’s assets. Check out this blog post for more info on these security measures: Optimistic or Fast, Your choice! Celer Inter-chain Message’s Two Flexible Security Models – Celer Network
On top of this unique architectural advantage that is not available in any other interoperability system, we have numerous checks and monitoring in place and have rate-limiting in the smart contract layer to ensure a smooth and safe bridging system. No one can say a system is 100% secure, but we are doing everything we can to enhance the security level of bridging systems on all fronts. We hope to keep the flawless record going forward!
Now onto some more exciting news.
We have implemented a non-EVM integration for Flow blockchain!
Flow is a blockchain that has $4M+ users and has huge brand name NFTs such as NBA topshot, UFC, NFL, and more. This integration means that we can help Flow to build an entire DeFi and NFT-Fi ecosystem that leverages these valuable NFTs on the flow ecosystem and therefore increase the usage of Celer Network as a whole. This is a massive opportunity: one can start to buy NBA topshot with BNB, AVAX, ETH, BTC, and more instead of just the fUSD token available today. The first step is to support fungible token bridges, but soon we will add NFT support so that all of the NFTs issued on Flow can be traded and exchanged in all other chains once they are bridged via Celer. The integration is the first step and a lot more integration and usage will come from the Flow ecosystem in the coming weeks. Stay tuned on that!
On the topic of non-EVM integration. Terra testnet was launched as well: https://twitter.com/CelerNetwork/status/1507102270273437702.
It is undergoing an auditing process and will be released to the public soon to enable UST bridging to all the other ecosystems that we support in the near future. Since we prioritized Flow’s mainnet launch, Solana integration is still ongoing but our engineering team is working on that for sure. A lot more exciting things are coming in the non-EVM space especially considering we are the only non-custodial bridge available for the Flow ecosystem.
Now, some more exciting things!
We are now the official bridge built-in BSC Application Sidechain. This is a massive opportunity as we are seeing a lot of AAA gaming studios adopting the model like Axie: they want their own side chain. cBridge will be the infrastructure that connects these BAS chains together and to all the other mainstream chains by default. Multiple projects are building on that front and we expect to see them coming out in Q2. Of course, the idea of an app sidechain is not only for BNB chain. Many blockchain ecosystems are launching their app-specific chains. Celer as a generalized approach can integrate with all of these solutions seamlessly too. It is just that we helped to build out the BAS infrastructure and therefore, we are built-in as the default bridge.
Now, onto the most exciting thing that is coming up: Celer Interchain Message mainnet launch. It’s coming very soon and as I mentioned before, it’s not going to be a “skeleton launch”. There are 8 different apps already building on top of Celer IM for different use cases. On day-1, Celer IM will be launched with some great use cases.
If you are paying attention to the cross-chain space, you guys probably saw the Stargate hype recently. Despite claiming to solve a ”trilemma”, Stargate still relies on local information on-chain to determine pricing function between different chains. This is because the underlying layerzero functionality is simply passing messages back and forth. However, since Celer’s interoperability core is a full-fledged blockchain, you can build a lot of intelligence with global information on that blockchain itself. So you can have a very simple smart contract for these kinds of one-click cross-chain swap use cases while maintaining a much higher liquidity utilization compared to Stargate’s reserved liquidity virtual link model. Therefore, users can get lower fees on each swap for both gas costs and also for pricing slippage. I will leave all the details to the upcoming releases and launches of Celer IM ecosystem projects. But that’s a highlight here: Celer IM is not just naively passing information through, but the SGN can implement application logic to transform messages cross-chain based on global information for all chains connected. This is something that no other interoperability has.
Also, as a sum up, you probably saw this one: https://twitter.com/CelerNetwork/status/1509738935244623873
The ecosystem is growing at a neck-breaking speed. 5 new EVM chains are integrated and more are coming.
That’s a quick summary of highlights! Make sure to stay updated through our Twitter stream here https://twitter.com/CelerNetwork!
AMA Summary
Celer IM Questions
Celer IM is going to solve some of the biggest issues in the cross-chain world – but how do you convince the likes of Curve, Uniswap, etc (i.e. all the existing big dapps that already have the network effect) to start thinking about using CelerIM?
There is no convincing needed, for the ecosystem cross-chain swap that is launching on top of Celer IM, it has already integrated with 6 different DEXes. Curve, Uniswap, Sushiswap are all included. So IM is an open framework and does not really require “permissions” from other protocols to join the ecosystem. Cross-chain DEXes built on top can integrate all available liquidity to find the best pricing on all chains. that’s the power.
Now you mentioned BAS is going to use Celer as default. Does this also mean all of them will be required to use CELR as the sort of subscription model mentioned in the past to take advantage of the Celer IM subscription service?
It means every BAS up and running will have a cBridge connected to them on day-1, so they will share the fee model and everything if they choose to connect with the rest of the cBridge ecosystem.
Celer IM can potentially use other bridges to bridge assets, making it akin to a bridge abstraction layer. Is this something that Celer is exploring to achieve? How would that affect the relationship between your partners such as Li.Finance?
Celer IM is an open platform, we are not building applications ourselves, except maybe cBridge. So Li.finance can freely leverage Celer IM to do amazing things.
What will the fees be composed of for the IM framework/subscription model? Is there a fixed USD price? Or is it bound to a specific number of tokens?
It is priced in CELR. But in the beginning, it will be charged in the native gas token on each chain. This is the simplest for UI and means a lot of adoption when we start. For all the collected fees, we plan to implement solutions in the future to aggregate these fees together to convert to CELR and then pass these rewards to the delegators in the SGN.
cBridge Questions
When users bridge NFTs, what will these fees be paid out in?
Right now in the native gas token, so if you are bridging an NFT in Ethereum, you will pay fees in ETH, if you are bridging an NFT in Avalanche, you will pay AVAX. All these fees directly flow to stakers in the SGN (sgn.celer.network) but at a later stage, we may implement a way to convert all these fees continuously to CELR. Basically, use all the collected fees to buy CELR in the system and distribute the CELR as the protocol native fee for the validators and stakers. We will set up a forum discussion about this and since a lot of users have made this request, we will put this to a governance vote.
Is it possible to add the total amount of fees collected by cBridge and its total bridges besides TVL on the analytics page?
Good idea, will add that for the users.
Is a block explorer being planned for cBridge or other products using SGN?
Yes, we are collaborating with a bunch of Cosmos block explorer builders for this.
When Solana is included, does that mean the NFT bridge is also linked to Solana?
Yes it does.
State Guardian Network (SGN) Questions
Can we get any indication of when the validator set up will be opened to the public now that SGN v2 has launched?
Once we increase the core validators to 30+, we will open it to the general public, but the total amount of voting validators will still be limited.
Does Celer have any plans to make it easier for inexperienced users to set up their own validator, is this something that could be done by inexperienced users?
Validators need to be reliable for the system so it really depends on what “inexperienced” means here, we generally expect high-quality validators in our ecosystem with high availability.
We have seen our SGN rewards going steadily upwards. I think it’s a shame it’s an all or nothing claim. Would it be possible to select which tokens I want to claim? Is there a technical limitation?
Good suggestion, let’s discuss this feature in the forum and put to a vote to implement this or not. We encourage people to use our forum more especially for interesting ideas and proposals!
Would an automatic compound on staking be possible now with SGN v2?
Something under consideration but the development team does not have a concrete timeline for this one.
BNB Application Sidechain (BAS) Questions
Beyond use by projects utilizing BAS, is Celer IM being integrated into the core infrastructure of BNB Chain? If yes, what is being implemented and what are the benefits to BNB Chain?
Well, BAS sidechain is the core infrastructure of BNB Chain to achieve application-specific scalability.
Is there anything you can share that would be interesting already built by someone or a group during the BAS Revelation hackathon?
We have yet to receive any submissions at this time, but will keep an eye out on this one.
Layer2.Finance Questions
What about layer2.finance, audits were completed a while ago. Is it still under development or delayed now with cBridge/IM upcoming improvements? Do the current releases of cBridge and IM supplement L2F?
A zk-version of L2f is coming soon, but it will be in an alpha release. Right now it is not a high priority for us but will have interesting synergies with Celer IM in the future.
Is layer2.finance still relevant considering the possible application of Celer IM by DeFi protocols?
Very much so, it can be extended to a cross-chain yield aggregator.
When Layer2.finance is released, would it be possible to use the locked L2F assets as liquidity for cBridge?
No, not at the moment at least.
General Questions
There are concerns in the community that the project is more focused on appealing to the demands of other projects/developers rather than its own community; especially individuals who do not stake in SGN, or stake at all. We wonder whether there is more utility coming other than staking (perhaps cBridge fee reduction)?
Everything comes down to the usage growth, so we believe focusing on adoption and real usage of the project is indeed a priority. The crypto-economics of Celer’s design is to allow CELR stakers to capture the value of the network fees that are generated by a high level of usage. That’s the fundamental anchoring point of CELR’s value.
Now, for additional utility, everything is on the table, Celer is an open community. You can make proposals in the governance forum and discuss them in a community vote.
For example, you can have ve-style CELR staking where if a LP stakes CELR in the SGN, it can also get higher boosted liquidity mining rewards from their liquidity mining activities in the system which is also boosting the utility of Celer.
This is quite an interesting idea that was repeatedly mentioned by our community, so veCELR is something that’s definitely on our radar, let’s have a forum discussion about this.
What are your thoughts on the tradeoffs of various interoperability solutions such as using ultra-light nodes/oracles like LayerZero is using versus a sidechain (SGN) for consensus like Celer Network uses?
L0 solution is a trust-based solution that is essentially a multi-sig assuming non-colluding between oracle and relayer. This has been discussed in the community so many times. Arjun from Connext had a great session about L0 that I highly recommend you guys to listen to.
Celer’s architecture is the ONLY architecture that comes with a built-in crypto-economics security model based on blockchain (SGN) and also an optimistic rollup based security model. So developers can freely choose between the tradeoff of delay and added security. This is extremely unique, no one has this. On top of that, Celer has a powerful and intelligent cross-chain layer.
As I mentioned before, all other solutions are simply passing information from chain A to chain B, Celer is not like that. For Celer, it is passing message M from chain A, taking into account all information available on chain CDEFG, transforming that message M to T(M), and passing that T(M) to B. This is super powerful to implement interchain dApps that are extremely hard to implement with just chain local information.
With the upcoming launch of Celer IM and our ecosystem cross-chain DEX called ChainHop, you will see how it is different from Stargate, which is the cross-chain DEX on L0.
Open Questions
Any thought on adding LRC to cBridge?
Thanks for the reminder should ask them about it!
What is an idea or building block that you envision abstracting the underlying SGN blockchain that will transform messages in the future that is not seen today? Where do you see the future of interoperability headed beyond DEFI?
Anything that relates to global states, things like you can actually build a cross-chain DEFI ecosystem on top of SGN with cross-chain lending, cross-chain swap, and all that without actually bridging any asset across chains.
So we are seeing more and more partners and usage of cBridge every day, is the return on staking supposed to grow as well? Are all the fees collected and passed on to stakers or does Celer keep some of those fees?
So first of all the staking rewards are going to increase over time as we transition to v2 completely, for the fees, the Celer team is not taking any fees, but will consider setting a portion of the fee as “safu fund” that is managed by the community.
With fees being paid in native currencies and then aggregated into celr tokens paid out to delegators/validators: Would this not create an increased supply shock on celr itself, and change little for the demand side of the token? Or do you envision the majority of fees captured which are then aggregated in celr then being re-staked on SGN.
Not really, so all the fees will be paid in native tokens and these tokens will be used to buy CELR on the market to distribute to the CELR stakers, who already hold CELR. There are other token economics that can be built and you guys are free to propose them, let’s have open community discussions and votes. For example, there are things like veCELR model and also potential ways such as purchasing CELR to set aside as a community safu fund and more.
Do you have an idea when Solana testnet could be launched?
No timeline at the moment, but very likely Q2.
Is Celer positioned in any way to be part of the BTC Lightning Network payment provider? Anything they or we can benefit from?
Not at this moment.