Axelar X GMB LABS AMA Recap

• On March 21, 2024, we held an AMA at the GMB LABS Discord with Shawn Lim, Head of APAC for Axelar. Thankfully, many people submitted questions in advance of the AMA, and we forwarded all of them to Axelar, including pricing questions, and all of the questions were selected by Axelar.

Q1. Axelar is connected to more than 60 blockchains, the largest in the industry, Can you explain why you've been able to grow so much and how it works?

Axelar has a top tier team coming from Algorand, Consensys, Chainlink etc. building since 2020 and gone mainnet since Jan 2022. Axelar's founders Sergey and Georgios are some of the top minds in the blockchain & cryptography space, being the founding team to design the first PoS blockchain Alogrand in MIT.

The Axelar team us focused on building on the most secure and scalable infrastructure to connect 1000 blockchains. In a very complex web3 world, one of Axelar's mission is to enhance web3 UX by building infrastucture that enables chain abstraction.

Q2. I know that Axelar tokenomics has been changed recently, can you tell me more about it?

Yes, the Foundation had put up a multi-stage proposal in Oct 2023. The key reason for the tokenomics revamp is to support hundreds or thousands of chains without inflating the network too much. The previous tokenomics would add rewards for each connected external chain so as to incentivise validators to add the new connection.

The first stage of the tokenomics change had already been voted in and it reduces inflation by more than 50% for each new connected external chain. In the next stage, it is to introduce gas burning mechanism which will turn AXL deflationary as cross chain usage increases.

Q3. Tell us about Axelar's advantages and differences from highly competitive projects like Layerzero and wormhole!

"Wow, great question! There are many differences! We are only similar in terms of the function to enable cross chain messaging. It is important to understand all 3 here are not bridges but provide the messaging infrastructure for cross chain apps like bridges to build on.

Firstly, Axelar Network is a blockchain that connects blockchains, whilst Wormhole and Layerzero are just infrastructure application layer. Being a blockchain means Axelar can build programmability through Axelar Virtual Machine (AVM) and builders can use the VM to build cross chains dApps on Axelar to deploy on multiple blockchains.

Secondly, Axelar is the most decentralised interoperability protocol with 75 validators validating the cross chain transactions. This is very important as past bridge hacks are due to centralisation of private keys such as Ronin, Nomad and Multichain. Wormhole only has 19 guardians and Layerzero uses only a 2 multi-sig structure."

Q4. I'm curious how axelar has organized its security model and how the assets of users using the bridge are protected.

"I see many questions with regards to security. That is great area to emphasise on. Unfortunately, most users forget about the risks and focus on the potential rewards like airdrops or costs involved. Past hacks have shown that one of the biggest target is bridges and it is because the bridge is too centralised. Axelar is built to address that exact area and have high decentralisation. The network is fully decentralised where 75 validators need to vote on cross chain messages and also protocol updates. Most cross chain messaging protocols and bridges that build on them are not decentralised enough. Axelar has also build in many other security features such as rate limits, key rotations and audits. For more information, please see https://axelar.network/blog/security-at-axelar-core

https://medium.com/axelarkor/엑셀라-네트워크-소개-네트워크-보안성-505e2a703c55

It is also very important to note that Uniswap Foundation did a very in-depth assessment of cross chain solutions - only Axelar and Wormhole passed the assessment. Celer, Layerzero and Multichain all didnt pass it. "

Q5. How does Axelar manage the scalability implications of facilitating cross-chain communication, especially as transaction volumes and network congestion differ significantly between interconnected blockchains?

With the current design of Axelar, the network can perform to the scale of other L1s. More importantly, we expect more chain integrations and cross chain use case adoption to grow beyond just bridging. For the longer term, we are also researching with top external teams to deploy light clients, such as using ZK proofs or restaked ETH proofs, to reduce the dependency on Axelar's core validator set.

Q6. One of the most important things at coin project is the VCs and partnerships that have trusted and invested in the Axelar team.Tell us about the VCs and partnerships that have trusted and invested in the Axelar team.

We are backed by top investors such as Polychain, Dragonfly, Coinbase Ventures, Binance, Galaxy and many top individual investors. They provide strong strategic advice and also business development support. Our network of investors are also strong supporters by investing into our ecosystem apps for eg, Squid recently raised USD 4m, led by Polychain Capital

Q7. What is the utilization of Axelar's token? Besides governance, is it possible to apply a token model that directly collects fees from actual users while promoting interchain interoperability? I'm curious about an intuitive revenue structure for interoperability besides just being a bridge!

The AXL token is not only for governance. Being a PoS chain, AXL token holders stake the token by delegating to validators to receive staking rewards. The growth of the network comes with more chain integrations and more cross chain app integrations growing the number of cross chain transactions.

All cross chain transactions will involve AXL fees though this step is abstracted away for the user for better UX through Axelar network service contracts collecting gas fees. As the ecosystem grows, there will be more cross chain transactions which means more gas fees collected. With the upcoming gas burning mechanism, the AXL token supply can turn deflationary as cross chain transactions through Axelar grows. Also with the launch of AVM, new chains can integrate to Axelar permissionlessly but they will need to have AXL. This means there will be more demand for AXL overall from the market.

Q8. We keep hearing that Axelar's ecosystem is expanding, so what are the benefits to Axelar and what are the benefits to holders in the end?

"Our ecosystem includes both other L1/L2 chains that are integrated to Axelar Network and also, ecosystem apps that use Axelar directly or integrates to Axelar's ecosystem apps like Squid. One example of a dApp using Axelar directly is Lido, where Axelar is used to bring stETH to Cosmos and BNB chain.

Another example where the dApp integrates with an Axelar ecosystem dApp is dYdX where it uses Squid for its cross-chain deposits. Not only all these integrations are key to the growth of the ecosystem, I am also very excited to see a new wave of interchain native apps such as Squid, Prime, Interswap etc which have been building in the last 12-18 months. For eg, Interswap provided incentivised whitelisted testnet access to Axelar users. Osmosis also have incentivised liquidity pools for AXL assets. As the ecosystem grow, the community also benefits from participating in it! Follow @Axl_Ecosystem on twitter or our Axelar Korea announcement channel (@axelar_kor_update) for latest updates

Q9. Many coin projects are entering the Korean market and investing a lot of interest and money in the Korean market, so I was wondering what the Axelar team thinks about the Korean market and what are your plans for entering the Korean coin market in the future?

Great question about our plans in Korea! I have joined Axelar 7 months ago with a goal to grow our Asia presence. Korea is a large part of our Asia growth strategy. Korea has a fast growing user base of crypto applications and also increasing enterprise adoption in the metaverse and NFT space.

As the market and Axelar community grows in Korea, we are considering to grow our local presence to work with the top builders and communities. Also, as mentioned in the earlier point about our growing ecosystem, we also help to bring top apps like Squid to the Korean community! 🇰🇷 🫰

Q10. Axelar's squid app is providing amazing speed and liquidity compared to other bridge protocols, but some chains (Fantom, Moonbeam, etc.) are charging 4-5 USD in fees. I was wondering if this is an improvement and what is the relationship with the squid app?

I also see great interest around our ecosystem app Squid. Squid is launching a V2 soon and it will enhance not only its UX but also transaction speed, slippage and new features such as cross chain NFT mints.

Please follow Squid Twitter: https://x.com/squidrouter or join their discord: https://discord.com/invite/squidrouter

Q11. The AI sector is very hot these days. I wonder if Axelar is also developing AI-related technology.

Since there's great interest around AI recently, every project wants to have something to do with AI. At the start of the AMA, I mentioned we have a very strong team of engineers where some specialises in Machine Learning and Large Language Models (LLM) processing for AI use cases. We are always investing in R&D to be the fore front of interoperability technology. So keep a close follow on Axelar in the coming months

• We then took LIVE questions for three minutes, and we realized that there was a tremendous amount of interest in Axelar, with nearly 50 great questions. As with the pre-questions, the on-site questions were hand-picked by Axelar.

Q12. Are there plans for non-crypto users besides blockchain users? So, how can you attract and what are your plans to attract?

"We are working with top banks, global big companies and also some of Korea top companies on how to bring blockchain to daily users in different areas of life - banking, investment management, payments, gaming, membership programmes etc.

One example is with JP Morgan when we created a pilot using Axelar technology for interoperable RWA tokens on banking blockchains. We also have recent collaboration with Microsoft, marking Axelar’s entry into the Azure Marketplace. This partnership makes tools like AxelarJS SDK and GMP available to developers, offering advanced hybrid blockchain solutions. Given the extensive use of Azure worldwide, this partnership could significantly fuel Axelar’s growth and expansion.

https://axelar.network/blog/jp-morgan-bridge-apollo-cross-chain-portfolio-management
https://axelar.network/blog/microsoft-enterprise-partnership-announcement

Q13. The blind spot of an interoperability solution such as Axelar is that no matter how good it is in itself, I think that in the end, a meta-changer-level killer dApp must be created among dApps that use the solution.

Which dApps are you most interested in using Axelar's solution!

Interoperability as a meta is still EARLY! Before Ethereum became so dominant in the 2017-2018 cycle, Ethereum needed to see a new wave of dApps such as Uniswap, Aave, Compound to come out. After that, transactions and usage volume skyrocketed.

Because today most crypto users are just moving around different blockchains for rewards and not driven by organic demand. Most dApps are just a fork of a Uniswap, Aave etc. BUT if we want to onboard the next 1 billion users, we need to make cross-chain UX simpler and usable!

Squid is a great example. Did you know that Squid is already integrated behind many top apps? Metamask, Trust Wallet, dYdX, Vertex, Decentraland etc. It is to simplify the whole UX without moving between apps, wallets and bridges. Everything all done in 1 app. Is Squid perfect? No, but Squid is building a very strong V2 that I am very excited about.

This is just 1 example that is live. There are many ecosystem apps coming mainnet this year. Be sure to be part of the Axelar community to get more meta and alpha!

• This concludes the official AMA, but we'll continue to host AMAs with promising projects in the future.