Ethereum competitor Avalanche announced about launching its own wallet application, called Core and add Bitcoin bridging functionality on the platform. These two initiatives aimed at simplifying the user experience and bringing more assets into the Avalanche ecosystem. Ava Labs which is the team supporting the development of the Avalanche blockchain, made the announcement at the Avalanche Summit in Barcelona, Spain, to the conference attendees.

The solution allows users to utilize their Bitcoin in the DeFi sector by directly transferring their BTC as an Avalanche-based asset called BTC.b. By introducing "wrapped" BTC, Bitcoin network users can have access to the Avalanche DeFi ecosystem. Along with wallet, Core is a curated Web3 operating system which combines secure wallet architecture with technology. This feature is not available in any other wallet. Users of the Core wallet can directly interact with decentralized applications (dapps) running on the Avalanche blockchain through native Avalanche bridging functionality. To transfer assets to the Avalanche blockchain, users of MetaMask previously had to use an Ethereum-Avalanche bridge. A bridge is an application that facilitates the transfer of assets from one blockchain to another which was a complex and hacker-prone process.

Over the past year, the Avalanche Bridge has become the most popular Ethereum-connected bridge, with over $6 billion in total value locked (TVL) due to the increased use of decentralized finance (DeFi). Since its launch in July 2021, the bridge has facilitated the use of $43 billion in assets between Avalanche and Ethereum.

In late March Core browser extension was rolled out which was first phase of the launch. Early in the second quarter Core mobile application will be launched which is the second phase of the launch. The company has also announced that it will add Bitcoin support to its existing Avalanche Bridge early in Q2, bringing the world's largest cryptocurrency by market cap into its DeFi ecosystem. In the past, users wishing to move their bitcoin to Avalanche had to wrap the bitcoin using third-party services like WBTC or renBTC. As part of the Avalanche project, the team is planning to support a growing number of blockchains.

In the past 24 hours, AVAX, the native asset of the Avalanche blockchain, stayed at $86. It’s up 25% on a seven-day basis.

Indrani bose

CBW - External Analyst

INDIA