Blockchain
Prime Protocol launched on Moonbeam, Ethereum, Arbitrum and Avalanche today. It offers a cross-chain prime brokerage that seeks to eliminate the need to use token bridges, swaps or packaged assets.
The protocol uses Axelar’s General Message Passing for interchain communication, and allows users to cross-link and borrow their entire portfolio against all of their on-chain assets through a single protocol.
Colton Conley, the founder of the project, told Blockworks that existing blockchains operate as separate islands. He noted that this can be quite capital inefficient when an investor has their on-chain portfolio spread across multiple blockchains, L1s and L2s.
“At the moment, the crypto ecosystem is fractionalized and it will be difficult to gain mass adoption, especially for the kind of end user who doesn’t want to worry about what underlying chain they are using,” Conley said. “You need a way to provide infrastructure for that user to have a seamless experience.”
Prime solves this problem by enabling users to get instant liquidity in the chain, regardless of where the collateral is locked up, Colney said.
Whenever a deposit is made, Axelar will send a message and withdraw that deposit to Moonbeam. When a user wants to withdraw or borrow money, they can request it with any chain supported by the Prime protocol. Axelar then facilitates the message and distributes the tokens to the chain of the user’s choice.
“By using cross-chain messaging, we keep track of your account in one place so we don’t have to ping every chain you’ve previously deposited on to provide you with liquidity,” he said. “We have set up liquidity pools on every blockchain. So the tokens are available to you wherever you are.”
The tokens available on each blockchain at launch include:
- ETH Assets: ETH, USDC, USDC
- GAMR Assets: GLMR, USDC, DOT, USDT
- AVAX Assets: ETH.e, USDC, USDT
- ARB Assets: USDC, ETH
While Prime Protocol will only make a handful of tokens available on each chain upon initial launch, Conley stated there are plans to include a wide variety of collateral in the future.
“If anyone collects liquidity or works in this space as well, I would love to partner with one of those protocols. Wherever there is room for collaboration with those types of players, I absolutely look forward to it,” said Conley.