Polygon and Wanchain Partner to Launch the First Direct Decentralized L2-to-L2 Cross-Chain Bridge

[PRESS RELEASE – London, United Kingdom, 7th December 2021]

Polygon and Wanchain are proud to announce a strategic partnership that will drive further adoption of Layer 2 cross-chain bridges and accelerate the development of interoperable blockchain technology as a whole.

To cement Polygon’s position as the leading platform of Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development, Wanchain will deploy direct decentralized cross-chain bridges connecting Polygon and Arbitrum. This Layer 2-to-Layer 2 bridge will complement and enhance Polygon’s growing suite of solutions, including Polygon Hermez, Polygon PoS, Polygon SDK, and Polygon Avail.

Wanchain, a decentralised blockchain interoperability solution that connects the world’s isolated blockchain networks, is the only project that enables truly decentralised cross-chain transactions between isolated heterogeneous blockchain networks. Wanchain’s cross-chain infrastructure already supports Bitcoin, Ethereum, Wanchain, EOSIO, Binance Smart Chain, Litecoin, XRP Ledger, Moonriver, Avalanche, and Polkadot. The addition of Polygon’s Layer 2 bridges reinforces Wanchain’s position as the world’s most advanced cross-chain solution.

Polygon and Wanchain have a shared vision of decentralised blockchain interoperability. They foresee that multiple Layer 2 solutions will coexist and that, in order to preserve the value of scaling solutions, different Layer 2 blockchains will need to allow assets, data, and commands to transfer directly from one Layer 2 blockchain to another.

This partnership marks the first instance of using decentralised liquidity pools to power cross-chain bridges. It is an important milestone as the blockchain industry marches towards decentralised cross-chain function calls. This approach differs fundamentally from the industry-standard Lock-Mint-Burn-Unlock approach previously formalized by Wanchain.

Li Ni, Wanchain VP of Business Development and Operations, states:

“We recognizsed that needing to pass through Ethereum when moving from one Layer 2 to another is self-defeating and completely undermines the improved scalability promised by Polygon. Wanchain’s new Layer 2 bridges preserve the high transaction throughput and low costs of Polygon while remaining efficient, versatile and decentralised.”

Sandeep Nailwal, the co-founder at Polygon, commented:

“By extending inroads between Abritrum and Polygon PoS, the cross-chain bridge will facilitate better liquidity and utility for ecosystem users on both sides while fostering greater overall interoperability and growth for the Ethereum Ecosystem.”

About Polygon

Polygon is the leading platform for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development. Its growing suite of products offers developers easy access to all major scaling and infrastructure solutions: L2 solutions (ZK Rollups and Optimistic Rollups), sidechains, hybrid solutions, stand-alone and enterprise chains, data availability solutions, and more. Polygon’s scaling solutions have seen widespread adoption with 3000+ applications hosted, 1B+ total transactions processed, ~100M+ unique user addresses, and $5B+ in assets secured.

If you’re an Ethereum Developer, you’re already a Polygon developer! Leverage Polygon’s fast and secure txns for your dApp, get started here.

About Wanchain

True DeFi is interoperable — Wanchain, the Wide Area Network chain, is the world’s premier decentralised blockchain interoperability solution. Our mission is to drive blockchain adoption through interoperability by building fully decentralised bridges that connect the world’s many siloed blockchain networks. This cross-chain infrastructure empowers developers to build truly decentralised cross-chain applications to power the future of DeFi.