A $50 million fund has been launched to help startups that use the Wormhole cross-chain messaging protocol, according to a May 18 announcement. The new fund is being managed by venture capital fund Borderless Capital and is backed by over 20 other blockchain development teams and venture capital firms, including Circle, Polygon Ventures, Solana Foundation, Jump Crypto and others.
It's time to make building in crypto more accessible than ever before.
Introducing the $50m Cross-Chain Ecosystem Fund, powered by Wormhole! pic.twitter.com/y3VeCsUrSa— Wormhole (@wormholecrypto) May 18, 2023
The fund will help startups that are “innovating cutting-edge apps, infrastructure, or tools that span multiple ecosystems,” according to its application page on the Wormhole website, which also describes the fund as “anti-maxi,” or promoting the idea that more than one blockchain is needed to solve users’ problems.
David Garcia, CEO and managing partner of Borderless Capital, stated that he thought the new fund would help to grow the Web3 economy and allow applications to attract new users:
“Our goal is to empower builders to transcend the limitations of individual ecosystems, paving the way for blockchain applications and protocols to realize their full potential."
Wormhole is a cross-chain messaging protocol. It allows different blockchain networks to communicate with each other and is often used to bridge assets from one network to another. For example, if users wanted to transfer Ether (ETH) from the Ethereum network to the Solana network, they could do so using Wormhole. It is connected to over 20 different networks, the announcement said.
Other cross-chain messaging protocols include LayerZero, Celer, deBridge and many others.
Related: Uniswap debate between bridging protocols lays bare security concerns
Wormhole has expanded its network of partners in the past few months. In January, crypto exchange Uniswap chose it as the official bridging protocol for its cross-chain governance between Ethereum and BNB Network. And on April 26, Wormhole integrated with Circle’s Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol to allow for simpler transfers of USD Coin (USDC) from Ethereum to Avalanche.
However, Wormhole has also met with controversy over its security in the past. Its Solana bridge was hacked in February 2022, leading to $321 million in losses. Developers later patched the faulty code that had led to the exploit and reimbursed all users.
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