ACROSS: The Crypto Teleport Device!!

By SamBTC | Crypto Projects- Sam's reviews | 8 Dec 2024

If you are new to crypto or you have been around in crypto but for some reason have never come across the Across protocol then this blog might give you some useful insights. It is also possible that if you have been playing around with crypto you might have unknowingly used Across already. The first couple of times I used Across I was not even aware of what it was. I was using the bridge functionality on Layer3 portal and it will show that Across is offering the lowest cost bridge and I will use it without understanding in details what exactly Across it.

So What Exactly is Across?

Simply put Across is a platform that allows you to bridge funds across more than 15 blockchains. What makes it different from the other bridging platforms is the “Intent” based bridge feature. Recently Uniswap incorporated this functionality of Across to enable cross-chain swaps across 9 blockchains. More and more DApps are realising how powerful this feature of Across is and have started building upon it.

In layman’s terms Intent based means that compared to standard bridge where you just send a coin from one chain to another and look at how much it will cost you, in Intent based approach the focus is on which coin you want in which chain and then Across works to find out which is the most efficient way to execute that route by minimising the cost and time involved.

How Can Across Help You?

As you start playing around with more and more crypto projects you will soon feel the need to bridge funds across different chains. It started when people started with Ethereum and then wanted to try out BSC and Polygon. Now there are hundred s of chains with new ones coming up every month.

One option to manage this is by using a CEX which will mean undergoing KYC and making yourself subject to any unreasonable crypto control that your country might feel like imposing. If you want to stay on DEX then a bridge would be required. Traditionally bridges have been very slow and very expensive. I remember paying close to $100 for each bridge when the options were very limited. It was a big challenge when you have limited funds.

Now as more bridging platforms have come up the fees and time required have significantly gone down. From my experience over the last few years Across offers the cheapest and the fastest option to bridge funds.

It males a big difference when you are a small investor and saving $10- $20 on a bridge enables you to have some funds left to interact with the new DApps.

Are There More Benefits of Using Across?

Besides giving you the advantage of the cheapest bridging of funds across chains Across gives you several other benefits on the go.

Every time you bridge funds you keep accumulating OP (Optimism) token rewards.

You also have options to contribute to the Liquidity pools available in Across and earn more rewards.

What is $ACX?

$ACX is the native token of Across platform and staking it gives you additional rewards from the liquidity pools.

In total 1 Billion $ACX will ever be minted of which 100 Million has been kept for the community. 100 Million is also set aside to be swapped to $UMA which ensures the security for the Bridge. UMA is a key component in the ecosystem of Across but considering how deep that topic is I will have to write a separate post on that.

How Can you Use Across?

This is one aspect about Across that I really like. The user interface is really simple and clean, there landing page is not cluttered with multiple options. The site is simple with just 4 basic options Bridge, Pool, Rewards and Transaction details.

You will land in the Bridging section where you select which chain you want to bridge from, which currency you want to bridge, which chain you want to bridge into.

It will show you the transaction fees with split of Bridge ng fee and the gas fee required at destination chain. Once you press “Confirm transaction” your funds will magically teleport to the destination chain in a matter of seconds.

What’s Next for Across?

If you look at the chart of $ACX you will see that since it’s launch at end of 2022 it has been getting stronger and stronger irrespective of the overall bearish market sentiment.

Since the start of December 2024 the chart went absolutely crazy and is on a parabolic pump.

This is driven to stready growth of the user base and people realise how effective the platform is so they stick around. It already has more than 100K followers on X and that number just keeps growing. The recent crazy pump is due to the Binance listing which was frankly overdue now. This might explode even further as more people jump into crypto space and want to bridge funds across the chains.