Today, the Interchain Foundation (ICF), a Swiss non-profit that advances interoperable, sustainable, and community-owned decentralized networks in the Cosmos ecosystem, announces the release of its 2024 Cross-Chain Interoperability Report. The annual report offers a comprehensive overview and analysis of the rapidly evolving blockchain interoperability landscape including trends, critical challenges, and recommendations for future growth and innovation. It examines leading protocols like IBC, LayerZero, Circle CCTP, Axelar, and Wormhole from January to October 2024, highlighting how these protocols address scalability, security, and user-centric innovation.
Key findings include:
- As of October 2024, the total value locked (TVL) across a total of the 43 largest interoperability protocols sits at $8 billion.
- The IBC Protocol is the leader in network size; it connects 117 chains, followed by LayerZero with 93 chains.
- From May to October 2024, Stargate and Circle CCTP had over $1B in monthly transaction volumes.
- Ethereum leads both cross-chain USD inflows and outflows, representing 47.9% of value outflows and 38.9% of value inflows.
- Ethereum to Arbitrum was the most active cross-chain route, with a total volume of $10.7 billion.
- Circle CCTP and IBC dominate in active addresses, with over 1.5 million monthly active addresses each.
Key insights from this report include Ethereum’s dominant role in cross-chain liquidity and the rise of intent-centric protocols like Stargate, which speed up cross-chain asset transfers for users. Innovations such as Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs) are garnering interest for their ability to verify cross-chain transactions without relying on third-party validators. Their ability to enhance scalability makes them a key component for addressing ecosystem challenges and driving the next phase of decentralized innovation.
“The 2024 Cross-Chain Interoperability Report aims to highlight both the incredible progress and the key challenges we face in connecting blockchain networks that have operated in silos so far,” said Josh Cincinnati, Foundation Council President of ICF. “As blockchain adoption increases, so do the number of tokens, chains, and associated communities. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the complexity. This report aims to demystify this complex ecosystem and showcases the industry’s efforts to build a more seamless, secure, and user-centric future.”
“This report showcases the huge progress made in connecting blockchains and rollups and how offering an interoperability solution is a must-have for all successful blockchain projects,” said Susannah Evans, IBC Product Manager at Interchain Inc. “Interoperability is a critical onboarding pathway, and leads to better outcomes for users. With solid interoperability, applications can’t rely on high exit costs to retain users and instead must compete along other differentiating factors. It also leads to new possibilities in the application design by enabling cross-chain workflows.”
The findings not only highlight the current state of blockchain interoperability but also offer a roadmap for its future growth and development. By addressing the current security vulnerabilities and improving user experiences, the industry can overcome major barriers to seamless cross-chain interactions, driving innovation and enabling more accessible and scalable blockchain ecosystems.
For more information or to access the full report, please visit here.
About the Interchain Foundation
The Interchain Foundation is a Swiss non-profit that funds, stewards, and responsibly advances the Cosmos and the broader interchain, an ecosystem of sovereign blockchains. The Interchain Foundation supports the development and adoption of the Interchain Stack, a software suite for building L1 blockchains, including IBC, Cosmos SDK, Comet BFT, and CosmWasm. The Interchain Foundation is shaping a new technological paradigm that is open-source, interoperable, and community-owned.