The organizations behind Algorand (ALGO), Solana (SOL), and Polygon (MATIC) have joined forces to form a new USD 50 million cross-chain investment fund.
Fund manager, Borderless Capital, on Thursday launched a cross-chain ecosystem investment fund. It focuses on investing in startups that leverage wormhole cross-chain messaging protocols.
Borderless Backs Cross-Chain Developers
The Algorand Foundation, Solana Foundation and Polygon Ventures are all participating in the fund. Other investors include Aptos Labs, Circle, Jump Crypto, and several major players in this space.
Together, the participants in Borderless’ new fund represent key stakeholders in some of the most popular blockchains today. By teaming up in the name of cross-chain interoperability, participants are indicating a willingness to collaborate on projects with diverse networks.
Dan Reeser, head of operations at the Wormhole Foundation, commented:
“Crypto is still a nascent industry with essentially limitless growth opportunities, and we can do nothing but work together, regardless of which specific network individuals are more passionate about,”
Wormhole invites startups to apply for investment on its website.
What is wormhole?
Wormhole is a cross-chain messaging protocol designed to power Web3 applications. It connects liquidity and users to over 20 leading blockchain networks, enabling use cases in DeFi, NFTs, gaming and more.
As one of the most popular interoperability frameworks, Wormhole has been used by the likes of Circle and Uniswap to bridge tokens from one blockchain to another. according to a Press releaseWormhole has already facilitated the transfer of tokens worth $35 billion.
A variety of cross-chain applications have also been built using the platform.
The need for security in cross-chain development
Cross-chain messaging protocols like wormholes offer a more connected future for today’s fragmented blockchain ecosystem. But to date, security issues have plagued crypto bridges. As a result, hackers have taken hundreds of millions of dollars.
For example, the Ethereum-Solana bridge of the wormhole was exploited in February 2022 for up to 120,000 wrapped ETH (wETH).
But to their credit, supporters of the wormhole stepped in to replace the stolen money. And after the venture capital firm behind the project coughed up the missing crypto, Wormhole launched a major bug bounty program to help prevent future exploits.
Within months, the program had proved its worth. And in May, the wormhole offered a USD 10 million reward to white hat hacker Satya0x for uncovering another critical vulnerability.
Going forward, if wormhole is to become the cross-chain messaging standard of choice for blockchain developers, it must continue to place an emphasis on security. Especially given the competition from alternative solutions like Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP).
Finally, with the advent of the new investment vehicle, crypto developers have more incentive to solve the cross-chain security challenges of wormholes.
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