Acala and Karura have announced plans to merge with Wormhole, the leading cross-chain bridge. The Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems will be linked to eight additional Layer 1 chains, including Ethereum, Avalanche, Terra, and Solana.
According to a press statement issued on Wednesday, development on linking the parachains to the Wormhole is proceeding, with a target launch date of the second quarter of 2022.
Users will be able to transmit tokens from other Wormhole-connected Layer 1 networks to Acala and Karura with the help of the Wormhole integration. Tokens may then be exchanged for other Polkadot and Kusama native assets or used as collateral to create the aUSD and kUSD stablecoins.
The bridge will provide the Polkadot and Kusama networks with simple access to nearly $200 billion in liquidity from eight additional Layer 1 networks. DeFi protocols built on Acala or any other Polkadot-connected parachain will be able to incorporate tokens transferred via Wormhole for use in yield farming schemes or to offer liquidity. Acala and Karura will become the ninth and tenth networks to offer token bridging through Wormhole, joining Ethereum, Avalanche, Solana, Polygon, Terra, BNB Chain, Fantom, and Oasis.
Wormhole is a message-passing technology that allows users to utilise smart contracts to move assets such as tokens and NFTs across several blockchains. It also allows cross-chain communication protocols and multi-chain oracles to communicate data across Layer 1 chains.
