Router Protocol AMA Recap
Recapping Important Q and A from our AMA Session on 13 September on Discord.
Q. Would You Like To Comment on the grant received from Terra?
Terra has been a very important blockchain for us. They have a huge community and a great use case, and have been building at a fast rate. We have been speaking with them for a while — DFYN partnered with them earlier for the yield farming program and has become the DEX with the highest liquidity for UST on Polygon. We have been collaborating with ideas on synthetic assets, but the foundational piece of our collaboration is to create a bridge between Terra and other ecosystems.
Q. What was the reasoning for building Router Protocol in the first place?
When we got involved in DeFi, we launched a fork of Uniswap on Polygon (Dfyn). We realized that in order to solidify our position in the market, we needed a reliable bridge to bring funds over to the Polygon ecosystem. We started researching and building a prototype for Router, which would be the cross chain bridge to Dfyn’s liquidity arm. We also envisioned the future will be of multiple chains as Ethereum fees were rapidly becoming unaffordable for those with small bags — this only warrants for a cross-chain liquidity protocol.
Q. What is the current status of Mainnet Launch?
Our mainnet launch will occur in 2–3 phases. The first phase will consist of a PoA bridge between Polygon and Ethereum. As we move forward, we will be transitioning to a DPoS mechanism to onboard more validators. We will also be adding support for more EVM and non-EVM chains during this time. Later, as part of our third phase, we will have our own Cosmos-based blockchain that will handle all of the accounting. We expect that the “alpha launch” of Phase 1 will be ready by the end of September, barring any unforeseen circumstances. Currently the code is with Halborn for auditing.
Q. What has been most challenging about the project?
From a tech perspective, Router Protocol has been compared with Thorchain, Polynetwork, and others. Router is different because it’s not just a swapping protocol — it’s a truly cross-chain messaging system. You will be able to build apps on top of Router Protocol, for example an Atomic Swap protocol on top of Router that will submit a trade on one chain, fulfill the order on a separate chain, and return funds on the original chain. This technology does not currently exist and is a major challenge to build. We are tasked with building high-quality code that is future-proof and is easy to understand, to allow enough flexibility to add components and for other developers to build on top of.
Q. How will Router plug in to DFYN on different chains? What other AMMs will Router utilize in XCLP?
We are being selective in where DFYN sets up nodes as each location requires a significant investment. Right now we are looking at Arbitrum, Avalanche, Solana, Fantom, Algorand, and BSC. This coincides with the locations we are launching Router’s XCLP on, starting with EVM chains followed by Terra, Solana and others.
Q. How will Router avoid the liquidity fragmentation issues that other cross chain protocols have experienced (low liquidity on a given node, etc.)
Router is a multi-directional bridge by design. Basically, it doesn’t require separate bridges between each chain. Instead, all chains can just plug into a single hub (consisting of router nodes) which can interact with all the chains. As far as Router will also maintain stablecoin reserves that will purchase the target asset on the destination chain in the event that liquidity is too low to execute a swap. If liquidity becomes low on one chain, Router can plug into the liquidity reservoir — Dfyn.
Q. What else is possible with Router Protocol?
As previously stated, our smart contracts are being designed specifically for interoperability and composability for other protocols and developers to build on top of Router. At its core, Router is a cross-chain messaging protocol. This will enable cross chain lending/borrowing, limit orders, yield farming, and so on. We will be launching our SDK so other developers can build on our infrastructure. We might launch a few use-cases in house, depending on the bandwidth of our developers. Our primary focus will be on adding support for more chains and moving Router to a fully decentralized validation mechanism.
Q. Can the team give a rough outline of the timeline for launch?
Q3 2021: PoA bridge between Polygon and Ethereum
Q4 2021 : Adding more chains and features.
Q1 2022: Moving to DPoS consensus mechanism (partially decentralized)
Q3 2022: Dedicated chain to achieve consensus based on Tendermint (completely decentralized)
Support for other chains will be added ad hoc
A big thank you to the community for your participation in this AMA session. We appreciate your continued support, and look forward to future sessions.
Those who wish to see the raw AMA video recording can watch it on Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVtSZTyb0Ls
About Router Protocol
Router Protocol is building a suite of cross-chain liquidity infra primitives that aims to seamlessly provide bridging infrastructure between current and emerging Layer 1 and Layer 2 blockchain solutions.
Website: https://routerprotocol.com/
Litepaper: https://routerprotocol.com/assets/docs/Router-Litepaper.pdf
Twitter: https://twitter.com/routerprotocol
Telegram: https://t.me/routerprotocol
Telegram announcements: https://t.me/router_ann
Discord: https://discord.gg/yjM2fUUHvN
