Moonbeam, a smart contract parachain on Polkadot, announced a partnership with Cosmos-based decentralized exchange Osmosis on July 23 to enable cross-chain token swaps between the Polkadot and Cosmos ecosystems.
Simply put, this integration means it will be easy to transfer tokens between the two different blockchain ecosystems. Axelar Network will serve as the bridge infrastructure for the cross-chain swaps.
Axelar is both a bridge network and a platform for cross-chain communication for smart contract protocols. The former allows tokens to be sent across different blockchains while the latter is what enables decentralized apps to be deployed on different networks. The project raised $25 million in its Series A funding last year.
DOT, the native token of the Polkadot blockchain, will be the first token supported on the cross-chain bridge, per the announcement. Moonbeam stated that there are plans to support the bridging of more Polkadot ecosystem coins to the Cosmos chain.
Moonbeam stated that the ability to transfer Polkadot-based coins to Cosmos is a major step in expanding cross-chain composability between the two blockchain ecosystems. As per the project’s team, the partnership buttresses the fact that Polkadot and Cosmos can exist as complementary ecosystems – even though they are often seen as rivals working on different ways to achieve the same goal.
Last September, Moonbeam integrated with Cream Finance, a DeFi project providing lending and borrowing services. It enabled Kusama and Polkadot users to use Cream’s services to deposit digital assets as collateral or lend them out. Also, Moonbeam allowed Cream Finance to integrate its ecosystem with Moonriver parachain on Kusama and later on Polkadot.
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