Wormhole營運長：我們的優勢和如何成為估值25億美元的獨角獸？

Wormhole, the cross-chain protocol, has achieved a valuation of $2.5 billion and completed a $225 million financing round, making it a unicorn in the blockchain industry.
(Previous summary:
Wormhole airdrop is here! Nearly 400,000 wallets eligible to claim, $W over $2.2 USD in OTC price)
(Background:
Wormhole, valued at $2.5 billion, gives out generous airdrops! Average of over $7,000 per address)
Table of Contents:
From hackathon project to $2.5 billion valuation
Plans to launch ZK light client
Commitment to cross-chain ecosystem development
On March 7th, the cross-chain protocol Wormhole, valued at $2.5 billion, announced the launch of its token W and promised to airdrop 617 million tokens to past users, accounting for 6% of the total supply. Nearly 400,000 wallets will receive the airdrop.
Wormhole was born out of a hackathon project launched by blockchain infrastructure company Certus One in October 2020. It initially adopted a direct token bridge between Ethereum and Solana ecosystems. In August 2021, developers at Jump Crypto released the second version of the protocol, using Proof of Authority (PoA) guardians network as an oracle and an permissionless relay network for cross-chain message transmission.
Wormhole, as a decentralized cross-chain protocol, combines smart contracts with encryption technology to ensure secure and reliable asset and data cross-chain transfer. Through Wormhole, users can easily transfer assets, while developers gain broader innovation space to drive the expansion of blockchain ecosystem and industry applications.
In November last year, Wormhole achieved a valuation of $2.5 billion and completed a $225 million financing round, becoming a unicorn in the blockchain industry.
Recently, ChainCatcher interviewed Dan Reecer, the COO of Wormhole Foundation, to uncover the mysteries behind Wormhole.
Dan Reecer, a graduate of the top business school in the United States, Indiana University Kelley School of Business, has accumulated four years of experience in marketing healthcare brands before diving into the crypto field. With over five years of experience in the cryptocurrency field, he has served as Chief Growth Officer at Acala, Marketing Director at Wanchain, and led growth projects at Web3 Foundation, making significant contributions to the launch of Polkadot. Dan Reecer joined Wormhole Foundation in 2023 and continues to explore and practice in the crypto projects.
In addition to announcing the airdrop, Wormhole has also taken new actions in promoting the adoption of Zero-Knowledge (ZK) technology. After funding Lurk Lab and Zpoken, on February 15th, Wormhole Foundation announced a collaboration with the Succinct team to build an Ethereum ZK light client, aiming to decentralize message verification and enhance cross-chain composability and network security.
Furthermore, in terms of hardware resources, Wormhole has partnered with AMD, which provides enterprise-grade FPGA hardware accelerators to support the development of the Wormhole ecosystem.
ChainCatcher: Wormhole started as a token bridge between Ethereum and Solana and has evolved into a universal message protocol that connects multiple chains in the ecosystem. How did Wormhole gradually grow from a hackathon project to the current Wormhole protocol?
Dan Reecer: Since the launch of the funded project by the foundation, Wormhole has made continuous breakthroughs in the cross-chain field. In 2020, to break the isolation between Solana and other mainstream networks, the Wormhole team developed the first version and successfully held the first Wormhole hackathon, involving collaboration of multiple teams to build cross-chain applications on the blockchain using Wormhole.
The core goal of the first version of Wormhole was to achieve interoperability between Ethereum and Solana.
Wormhole has made significant progress and now connects over 30 different blockchains. Wormhole recently reached a milestone by transmitting 1 billion cross-chain messages through Wormhole.
Currently, over 200 applications have been built on the Wormhole platform, and thousands of developers use Wormhole for cross-chain transactions every day, enhancing the liquidity and user base of their applications.
ChainCatcher: Uniswap has chosen Wormhole as its primary cross-chain message protocol in its cross-chain deployment. What unique advantages does Wormhole’s cross-chain protocol have compared to other protocols?
Dan Reecer: First, Wormhole has a wide coverage of cross-chain support, including Ethereum, Solana, Aptos, NEAR, Sui, and Algorand virtual machine execution environments, and integrates them. This is why many projects choose Wormhole for cross-chain transactions.
Second, Wormhole is 100% open-source, with all codes publicly available on GitHub, audited multiple times, and regularly reviewed to ensure security. Recently, we hired a Chief Security Officer and collaborated with the Asymmetric Research team to ensure the security of the entire platform.
In addition, unlike other cross-chain protocols that are usually controlled by two-party multisig, Wormhole has a highly decentralized nature.
Wormhole’s core organizational structure is based on the Proof of Authority (PoA) mechanism, consisting of a group of trusted entities called Guardians. The Wormhole Guardian network consists of 19 members, including Chorus One, Everstake, Figment, and xLabs. Every message transmitted through Wormhole must be validated by at least 13 out of these 19 validators to be sent to another blockchain. Currently, all validators are within the governance system.
Furthermore, Wormhole closely focuses on developer needs and provides diverse products. Wormhole has five core products aimed at building a comprehensive interoperability platform rather than being limited to a single product.
For example, the Remote Queries used by Synthetix allow data extraction from any chain data source to another blockchain. This product is still in the testing phase.
Uniswap is using Wormhole for cross-chain governance, as Wormhole provides cross-chain governance information transmission services to Uniswap, ensuring the consistency of governance deployment across various interoperability protocols.
ChainCatcher: Last month, Wormhole announced its ZK roadmap and plans to deploy ZK light clients for multi-chain cross-chain infrastructure in the coming months. How do you see the future development of the cross-chain infrastructure field? How do you think these new ZK light clients will change the current state of the blockchain industry and how will they contribute to Wormhole’s long-term goals?
Dan Reecer: Wormhole team always adheres to the core spirit of cryptocurrencies and actively applies zk technology to the Wormhole platform to reduce reliance on centralization factors.
After zk technology is officially launched, developers will have two options for transmitting data or tokens: continue to use the existing validator system or choose the fully trustless zk technology to eliminate reliance on validators.
Wormhole values zk technology because it will effectively reduce Wormhole’s reliance on company trust and further promote decentralization. Through continuous technological innovation and optimization, Wormhole will provide developers with a more secure, efficient, and decentralized interoperability platform.
Wormhole has funded three teams: Lurk, Zpoken, and Succinct. Additionally, Wormhole has received hardware support from AMD in FPGA and GPU to optimize zk technology for maximum speed and cost-effectiveness.
Wormhole plans to launch zk clients this year to achieve seamless interoperability between Ethereum and NEAR chains.
ChainCatcher: Will Wormhole launch a dedicated zk layer to manage these zk proofs transmitted between different chains, or do you plan to choose specific chains to solve this problem?
Dan Reecer: Wormhole does not need to develop a dedicated zk layer for this purpose. Instead, Wormhole is developing zk-like clients that can deploy various technologies on different chains and seamlessly integrate them, without the need for underlying zk solutions like zkSync or Polygon.
While zk is usually used for privacy protection, in the context of Wormhole, zk is used to reduce centralization trust and enhance decentralization.
ChainCatcher: In December last year, the parallel EVM blockchain Monad announced a partnership with Wormhole to achieve technical integration. Could you provide more details about the collaboration between Wormhole and Monad and the impact of this collaboration?
Dan Reecer: Wormhole will attract users and liquidity for Monad, injecting vitality into its ecosystem. Users can easily cross-chain SOL from Solana to Monad using Wormhole and freely participate in any activities within the Monad ecosystem, including DeFi.
For Wormhole, this is not only a challenge but also an excellent opportunity to expand market share and transaction volume.
ChainCatcher: Will Wormhole expand its coverage to different project types, or will these projects only focus on message interoperability? Are you considering partnering with larger ecosystems like Optimism or Arbitrum?
Dan Reecer: The current plan still focuses on interoperability, which is also one of the biggest opportunities in the entire industry.
Considering the exponential growth of the number of blockchains and the entire industry, bridging between chains becomes crucial. It’s undeniable that the world is moving towards a multi-chain environment and needs a secure and minimally trusted cross-chain infrastructure to drive this expansion and promote the prosperity of the industry.
For users, the focus is not limited to the platform itself but on cross-chain needs.
Therefore, Wormhole’s focus has always been on building more products and seamlessly integrating them into a suite of tools. Currently, Wormhole is actively collaborating with application and blockchain developers, as well as token issuers for cross-chain transactions, increasing the number of covered applications, expanding the range of cross-chain or multi-chain tokens, and initiating community governance to jointly promote the development of the cross-chain ecosystem. This is the path Wormhole will continue to adhere to in the next 5 to 10 years.
ChainCatcher: In November last year, Wormhole raised $225 million at a valuation of $2.5 billion. What are the plans after this financing round? Additionally, the team behind Wormhole announced the establishment of Wormhole Labs. What considerations led to this?
Dan Reecer: Wormhole always places engineering and products at the core. With the development of the Wormhole ecosystem, multiple collaborative teams have gradually emerged. Currently, Wormhole has the foundation, Wormhole Labs, X Labs, and the security-focused Asymmetric Research team, which together form the core strength of Wormhole.
In terms of developer support, Wormhole has provided various grants in Denver and Ethereum hackathons and will continue to participate in similar events to strengthen the developer ecosystem. Additionally, Wormhole focuses on recruiting top talents.
ChainCatcher: Wormhole launched the Cross-Chain Ecosystem Fund and XGrant funding program. What are the specific criteria for selecting projects to fund? Are there plans to increase funding amounts to support more promising projects?
Dan Reecer: X Grants are specifically designed for open-source projects in the Wormhole ecosystem, with funding criteria available on the official website. Self-applications will be evaluated and screened by a dedicated team.
Wormhole also collaborates with BorderlessCapital to launch the Cross-Chain Ecosystem Fund, aiming to invest in project teams that can drive the development of the entire cross-chain ecosystem. These teams have closely integrated with Wormhole from the beginning.
Furthermore, regarding the Wormhole Base Camp accelerator program operated by Outlier Ventures and funded by BorderlessCapital, it focuses on supporting early-stage Web3 founders. Currently, five startups have been selected and will receive $200,000 investment from BorderlessCapital.
Wormhole is always committed to supporting the development of the entire cross-chain ecosystem. Whether to expand the funding scale requires further research and preparation.
ChainCatcher: With Bitcoin recently reaching new highs and the crypto market sentiment remaining high, will Wormhole accelerate the progress and development of certain projects?
Dan Reecer: Wormhole does not change its direction due to market fluctuations. Wormhole has been in development for over three years and has experienced market cycles. Wormhole focuses on its goals, releases new products, and improves existing ones.
Market cycles may cause some disturbances on social media, but Wormhole always adheres to its original intention and is committed to achieving its mission.


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