Owlto surpassed Wormhole and Polyhedra to become the number one cross-chain bridge within one year of its launch. What did Owlto do right?

Thanks to the development of modularization, launching chains is becoming easier and easier. This has even developed into a chain launch track Rollups-as-a-Service, which supports one-click chain launch and completes the deployment of a Layer 2 in just ten minutes.

However, as more and more chains emerge, the problems of inter-chain interoperability and liquidity have become more prominent. Currently, the top ten public chains account for about 88% of the market funds, and the remaining hundreds of public chains share 12% of the market funds. The scattered funds lead to fragmented liquidity, and users need to bear higher slippage and fees when performing cross-chain operations.

Many official cross-chain bridges have limitations and long turnaround time costs when connecting different L2s. For example, the zkSync official bridge can only transfer assets from zkSync to the Ethereum mainnet, and cannot directly interoperate with other L2s such as Optimism. When using Blast for cross-chain, users may have to wait 14 days to transfer funds from the L2 network back to the Ethereum mainnet.

Against this backdrop, third-party cross-chain technology emerged and spawned many related projects, such as Wormhole, LayerZero, Owlto Finance, Polyhedra, Orbiter, and Across.

Wormhole has attracted a lot of attention from the market due to its luxurious investment background. Its token W had a total market value of more than $16 billion at the beginning of its launch. Today, W has fallen nearly 78% from its peak. This makes people wonder whether there is a problem with Wormhole or the cross-chain market is not recognized by the market.

The underlying reason behind the cliff-like decline in Wormhole's market value may be that the manipulation of capital has led to the creation of a financial bubble, but users do not buy it. Actual measurements show that Wormhole needs several dollars and takes 16 minutes to conduct a cross-chain transaction. DefiLlama data shows that Wormhole has processed 396 cross-chain transactions in the past 24 hours, ranking 20th in the entire track.

The same is true for Polyhedra Network. Its token ZKJ had a market value of 3.8 billion US dollars at the beginning of its launch, but its current market value has dropped to 1.1 billion US dollars.

Binance co-founder Zeng Heyi said that the problem of high FDV has caused users and investors to suffer a lot except for a small number of project parties who have made profits. Behind the high FDV, retail investors do not take over, and VCs have also become big leeks. After experiencing the disappointment of multiple high FDV projects, the community has become more cautious and turned its attention to projects that can truly provide value and user experience.

Image source: DefiLlama

In sharp contrast to Wormhole and Polyhedra, Owlto Finance, which was established only a year ago, has risen rapidly to become one of the projects with 1.8 million users and the largest number of cross-chain transactions. According to DefiLlama data, Owlto completed 79,000 cross-chain transactions in the past 24 hours.

Owlto's success lies in its emphasis on fundamentals and community building rather than relying on large-scale market promotion. By investing more resources in community building and research and development, Owlto won a group of loyal users in the early stages. These users saw the potential and value of Owlto, and as more people gradually understood and used Owlto, its market share and influence continued to expand. This steady development model shows that Owlto's success is not only based on capital background, but also on its practical technology and product design that is close to user needs.

How did the cross-chain bridge Owlto become the first in one year?

June 2023: Owlto mainnet is launched.

September 2023: Owlto ranks first in participation in OKX Cryptopedia Season 7 (Polygon zkEVM).

October 2023: Owlto ranks first in transaction volume in the Scroll ecosystem.

March 2024: Owlto's total number of users exceeds 1.5 million.

May 2024: Owlto becomes the first cross-chain bridge in the Bitcoin ecosystem with more than 1.5 million cross-chain transactions and raises $8 million.

June 2024: Owlto upgrades the points system and announces a snapshot in Q3.

Today, Owlto has more than 1.8 million users in more than 200 countries and regions around the world, supports more than 45 networks and 11 mainstream wallets, and has more than 100 ecological partners.

90% of cross-chain transactions are completed within 30 seconds

Owlto has been able to rise rapidly in the field of cross-chain bridges and become the most successful project, which is inseparable from its fast cross-chain speed. Wormhole generally takes 16 minutes to conduct a cross-chain transaction, and the faster Polyhedra also takes 2 minutes. Owlto can ensure that more than 90% of cross-chain transactions are completed within 30 seconds, and is also committed to providing low-cost cross-chain services, so that users do not have to wait for a long time, and can also save transaction fees.

CertiK AA security rating, comparable to Optimism

Security is also an important consideration for users to choose a cross-chain bridge. Cross-chain bridges are often targeted by hackers because they involve large amounts of money and high-value assets. Previously, Wormhole was hacked, resulting in a loss of more than $300 million. According to SlowMist data, as of now, there have been 45 public security incidents in the cross-chain bridge ecosystem, with a cumulative loss of more than $2 billion.

Owlto has taken multi-level protection measures in terms of security, including strict smart contract upgrades, real-time monitoring and anomaly detection, and the establishment of user fund protection mechanisms. With its strong security and technical strength, Owlto has obtained the AA rating from the authoritative security assessment agency CertiK, and is one of the highest-rated projects in the cross-chain bridge track, comparable to Solana and Optimism.

One-stop airdrop tool integration

In addition to its cross-chain speed far exceeding its peers, Owlto's user interface design is simple and intuitive. Whether you are a novice or a crypto native user, you can easily get started and quickly complete cross-chain operations. This user-friendly design comes from the fact that Owlto was developed by a group of senior crypto users who understand user needs.

Owlto not only provides efficient cross-chain services, but also provides users with detailed L2 interaction suggestions and guidelines, especially for projects that have not yet issued tokens. With these guidelines, even in the face of complex interactive airdrop rules, Owlto users have a greater chance of receiving airdrop rewards.

With the increase in the number of airdrop projects and the need for users to use multiple accounts to participate in the interaction, Owlto has developed and integrated a variety of airdrop query tools. These tools support users to access all relevant information in one stop, allowing them to quickly obtain detailed information about airdrops, and better understand and participate in airdrop activities through smart prompts to ensure that no opportunities are missed.

New paradigm, modular cross-chain combined with AI intention

If we discuss the biggest technical update in this round of bull market, then "modularization" must be an unavoidable topic. Modular design allows developers to decompose blockchain systems into independent modules, each of which can be developed, tested and deployed independently. This design approach not only improves development efficiency, but also enhances the flexibility and scalability of the system. Project parties can combine and deploy blockchain functions more flexibly, improve development efficiency and reduce the risk of errors.

Cross-chain can also be modular

Now, Owlto applies modular design to cross-chain, which may open up a new track. Owlto provides a cross-chain bridge-as-a-Service (OBaaS) for the full-chain Layer 2 network. Through a modular cross-chain interoperability protocol, Owlto can provide cross-chain services for native and non-native assets for Layer 2 networks such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

This also means that networks that use the Owlto cross-chain bridge as a module component can directly integrate Owlto's OBaaS service and natively support LST or LRT's cross-chain services. These public chains and Layer 2 networks do not need to develop official bridges or separate protocols to support specific tokens. At present, Owlto has supported 45 networks. Access to OBaaS will greatly help new projects solve the problem of insufficient liquidity in the early stages of development and accelerate their development.

AI intentions are the first to be combined with cross-chain, DeFi Summer Again

In addition to "modularization", "intention" is also one of the important trends that the crypto industry has paid much attention to. Intent refers to the goals and actions that users want to achieve through blockchain. AI technology can automatically identify and execute these intentions, thereby simplifying user operations and improving user experience. Top venture capital firm Paradigm even ranked it as the top of the top ten trends to focus on. Some developers claim that intent is the future of Web3.

Based on the prediction of the future, Owlto combines AI with intent operations and launched the AI Intent Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol. As the first full-chain interoperability protocol to introduce AI Agent to achieve intent cross-chain, Owlto's products eliminate the need for users to understand complex cross-chain knowledge or perform complex and potentially risky authorization and transaction operations. AI Agent automatically recommends and generates the best cross-chain and transaction paths under the whitelist, enabling users to operate cross-chain with zero threshold.

This AI intention operation not only improves the user experience, but also promotes the implementation of the industry in real scenarios. For example, when users perform DeFi operations, AI can find the shortest transaction path for transaction matching and arbitrage, greatly improving transaction efficiency and benefits.

The combination of modular design and AI intention lays a solid foundation for full-chain liquidity. Through Owlto, users can easily implement DeFi mining and cross-chain operations without having to face complex operation processes. Owlto's solution will make cross-chain operations more efficient and secure, and promote the further prosperity of the DeFi ecosystem.

Integrate all popular L2, one-stop cross-chain airdrop

As a project that has not yet issued a coin, most users are more concerned about how to interact to maximize their benefits. According to the latest news, Owlto officially announced that it will conduct the first points snapshot in the third quarter of 2024, and the points will serve as one of the important bases for the subsequent airdrop distribution. At the same time, the Owlto points plan was also significantly upgraded on June 1, which provides new users with ample opportunities to accumulate points from scratch while rewarding active and loyal users.

There are four main ways to obtain Owlto points: cross-chain transactions, participating in tasks, recommending new users, and daily sign-ins.

Conduct cross-chain transactions

Conducting cross-chain transactions is the main way to obtain points. No matter what kind of cross-chain transaction the user conducts on Owlto, he will receive the corresponding basic points reward according to the target chain. In addition, as the number of cross-chain transactions increases, users can also receive higher points multiple rewards. For example, if a user uses Owlto to cross-chain USDT from the Base network to Ethereum, he can get 300 basic points. If the user uses Owlto to conduct more than 100 cross-chain transactions, the basic points will enjoy a 1.5x reward.

Participate in tasks

Owlto holds various task activities from time to time, and users can get additional task points rewards by completing specific cross-chain tasks. For example, completing Linea's cross-chain tasks can get additional points rewards and Galxe event rewards.

Recommend new users

Recommend new users is also an important way to accumulate points. Users can invite new users to join Owlto by generating a referral link. When a new user completes a cross-chain transaction for the first time through the referral link, the referrer will receive a reward equivalent to 10% of the points earned by the new user.

In addition, the referrer can also share the actual income generated by the recommended user, and the rebate rate varies depending on the number of transactions of the recommended user, and enjoys a 10%-15% share. Previously, Owlto has given users $60,000 in referral rewards, and the cumulative rewards given to users in the second phase have reached $125,000.

Daily Sign-in

Daily sign-in can also allow users to accumulate certain points. Users can get 2 points for signing in every day. If a cross-chain transaction is completed on the same day, the sign-in reward will increase to 10 points.

Excess returns

In the existing network, there are many projects that Owlto supports but has not yet issued native tokens, such as Scroll, Bitlayer, etc. Owlto is not only a cross-chain bridge, but also a builder of ecological projects, bringing liquidity and ecological prosperity to it. In the early stages of Scroll's development, Owlto established cooperation with it, supporting users to mint Origins NFT on its network and enjoy 0 cross-chain fees. In addition to Scroll, all mainstream L2 networks have established cooperation with Owlto. By interacting with networks that have not yet issued coins on Owlto, users can not only obtain point rewards provided by Owlto, but also have the chance to obtain project airdrops, achieving one-fish-two-eats and earning excess returns.

In addition, users can also use Owlto to participate in other airdrops. Owlto has a close relationship with other popular dApps on the chain, which means that users can easily participate in the interaction of these dApps and obtain airdrop rewards through Owlto. To ensure that users do not miss the latest hot projects and airdrop opportunities, Owlto will post prompts and announcements on Twitter in a timely manner to help users seize every opportunity.

Owlto is not only an efficient cross-chain bridge, but also a powerful assistant for users in the field of cross-chain and airdrop. Through a simple and intuitive user interface and detailed interactive guides, Owlto helps users easily obtain the dual benefits of cross-chain and airdrop.

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