Terra and Cosmos’ full power is unleashed by the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC). IBC gives independent, Tendermint-based blockchains the ability to trustlessly move their native tokens across chains.
With IBC, there’s no bridging required to move say Cosmos (ATOM) or Secret Network (SCRT) tokens to Terra. Instead, these chains can communicate via IBC’s relayers to transfer value between one another.
Thanks to IBC, Astroport has successfully added support for three native IBC assets paired with UST. Specifically:
- Cosmos (ATOM/UST)
- Osmosis (OSMO/UST)
- Secret Network (SCRT/UST)
As Terra’s leading DEX by volume, this not only gives Astroport traders access to new token pairs, it should help the entire Cosmos ecosystem by deepening liquidity for the network’s native tokens. It will also make it easier to swap native tokens directly on Astroport and within the DEX aggregators and crypto wallets that rely on Astroport liquidity.
As the IBC ecosystem matures, it will enable interesting new use cases for IBC assets throughout Terra. One can imagine, for example, Terra-based protocols like Mars and Anchor adding support for borrowing and/or lending IBC assets. In the Fields of Mars, advanced strategies using IBC assets including leveraged staking and leveraged yield farming may become possible, too.
It all starts with liquidity, though. And Astroport’s support for IBC tokens is a giant step in that direction.
You can add liquidity for Astroport’s new IBC pools by visiting Astroport’s pools page. Advanced users can interact directly with Astroport’s smart contracts rather than using the web interface. As liquidity deepens and arbitrageurs get to work, prices for IBC assets should normalize on Astroport. That will help unlock the next wave of interchain apps on Terra.
The future awaits.
✦
Follow Astroport on Twitter and subscribe to the Astroport email newsletter to get the latest alerts from the mothership.
DISCLAIMER
This article does not constitute investment advice. Before interacting with Astroport, review the project disclaimers here.
