The days of Polkaswitch are coming to an end. It’s not because the crypto community doesn’t like the project. Quite the contrary. CEO and Co-Founder Viveik Vivekananthan, a former software engineer at Apple, and his team from Amazon, IBM, and Oracle are rebranding their project as Swing, beginning in October 2021.
What Is Swing and Why the New Name?
Swing is a decentralized cross-chain crypto protocol that aggregates liquidity from decentralized exchanges (DEX) across major blockchains. It powers trading for thousands of popular cryptocurrencies.
Why the new name? The answer is simple. Vivekananthan started with a strong desire to create a cross-chain liquidity solution for projects on the Polkadot and Ethereum ecosystems. Today, they are realizing that both the value proposition they are offering to crypto users, and the revenue Swing can start earning in the immediate future will grow exponentially if the project can offer its cross-chain liquidity capabilities across all major blockchains.
The first targets include Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Optimisim, HECO, Near, Solana, Terra, Harmony, and Fantom.
With a mission and a vision that stretches far beyond the Ethereum and Polkadot ecosystems, it makes sense to go with a new name to go with the next-level ambitions of the cofounders. Swing’s base of 14,000 Telegram users is continuing to grow fast and the move will only heighten the excitement and awareness of its value proposition in the crypto community.
Why Swing Is Aggressively Tackling the Blockchain Industry’s Cross-Chain Liquidity Problems
Taking advantage of liquidity is a really easy thing to do in the cryptocurrency world if you’re only talking about using one blockchain. The thing is that innovation moves fast in the industry and nobody knows which smart contract platforms, metaverses, DeFi projects, securities tokens, infrastructure plays, or NFT platforms are going to win in the long run.
With that in mind, projects solving problems across many different major blockchains are going to be ahead of the game in the future. They can serve users regardless of the ecosystem their cryptocurrencies live on.
Even though the founder of Polkadot, Gavin Wood, is also a co-founder of Ethereum and the project itself is in the top 10 by market capitalization, Swing aims to go far beyond that.
If the project can allow users access to more than $1T worth of liquidity across 10 or 20 blockchains etc., it means that all of a sudden, users can be in all of the blockchain ecosystems they want to be in without having to worry about paying exorbitant smart contract fees.
The more utility Swing provides in helping to unlock cross-chain liquidity, the more profitable it is for the project too.
Swing’s Competitive Advantage Makes Practical Sense
Swing enables the ability for users to move crypto assets from one blockchain to another and execute cross-chain trades and swaps all in a decentralized fashion.
That whole concept is something the crypto industry as a whole is still trying to work its way around. Swing is the answer to that.
What Does It Mean to Move the Same Crypto Asset from One Blockchain to Another?
Let’s say a user wants to send 10 USDC from a layer 2 solution like Polygon to Binance Smart Chain (BSC). This can all be done using a bridge and the user ends up with 10 USDC formatted for the BSC blockchain. This capability empowers crypto traders and yield farmers with a greater ability to interact with a wider variety of profit-earning opportunities.
How Swing Enables Decentralized Cross-chain Trades and Swaps between Two Blockchains
Normally, if a user wanted to trade 1,000 USDC living on Polygon for three Binance (BNB) tokens living on BSC, they would have to use a bridge to convert the 1,000 USDC tokens to a BSC-friendly format, then trade those USDC for three BNB.
With Swing, the user can trade their 1,000 USDC living on Polygon for three BNB formatted for BSC without having to do all of the mental gymnastics. This is the key advantage of using Swing over other decentralized platforms.
Swing Offers Unparalleled Speed for Users Bridging Assets
Bridging assets is getting easier as time goes by and blockchain projects continue to innovate. That’s part of the reason projects like BSC, Polygon, and Avalanche are so popular.
Here’s the thing. Bridging assets using each of the above options can take up to 30 minutes. In the fast-moving world that DeFi is, 30 minutes is an eternity.
Swing on the other hand makes it possible to bridge tokens using a single click because crossing bridges are integrated directly into the platform.
Venture Capital Firms Are Taking Notice
Unlocking cross-chain liquidity across blockchains is not only necessary, it’s insanely valuable. That’s why some of the top venture capital firms in the space are coming to the aid of Swing, to the tune of a $3 million fundraising round. The project is looking to raise additional funds by the end of this year.
The capital will go towards helping Swing achieve its mission at scale, which means serving a global audience in ways few competing projects have done before.
Serving a Wider Audience Means More Transaction Volume
Cryptocurrencies are like stocks in the sense that their value can be deduced based on either fundamental analysis or technical analysis. One of the fundamental drivers that makes a project valuable is transaction volume. It speaks to how popular a given blockchain is.
While Bitcoin’s blockchain is the most valuable in the world by market capitalization and offers a great example of elegance and simplicity, Ethereum is where the majority of the DeFi and NFT world lives. The problem is that smart contract transaction fees on the Ethereum network are still massive.
Given that, it makes sense that many crypto enthusiasts believe there are many potential competing blockchain projects that could someday overthrow Ethereum. While the market capitalizations of these other projects started out small, today they are also multibillion-dollar entities just like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Now that Swing is advancing its intentions to also move into layer 2 chains like Arbitrum, Optimism, and Aurora, and other projects, the fundamental value of Swing’s cross-chain liquidity solution can become more diversified, robust, and valuable.
This means the potential for earning revenue based on the transaction volumes across different blockchains can go up exponentially.
The Swing re-brand launches this month. Remember to take advantage of the chance to use your liquidity to your advantage regardless of which ecosystem offers you the best opportunities to capitalize on the blockchain revolution.
Why Swing is Great for Yield Farming, Lending and DExes
Are you a yield farmer, lending or DEX protocol? Swing can unlock plenty of potential for you. As you may know, participating in farming, lending and DEX liquidity pools outside of the Ethereum blockchain means having to bridge assets. Many of these protocols offer a massive opportunity to profit to traders who get in early.
One particular farm in the Avalanche ecosystem called BENQI for example saw a billion dollars in total value locked income pouring into the project in less than 24 hours.
That’s an unbelievable amount of capital in a short amount of time. As usual in crypto, the early birds benefit from the most upside. This makes a one-click solution like Swing a great choice.
Please do reach out to us if you’d like to partner up or help your users bridge assets to your farm. We’d love to hear from you.
Image by katerinavulcova from Pixabay