MakerDAO, which claims to the “longest-standing” decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol and creator of DAI, the original, decentralized stablecoin, announces the launch of Maker Teleport, a multichain infrastructure for teleporting DAI across different blockchain networks.
Maker Teleport is now “available on the smart contract chains Arbitrum and Optimism, enabling users to almost instantly transfer DAI between these chains, significantly reducing both time and fees.”
While congestion and high gas fees on the Ethereum network has led to the successful emergence of Layer 2 blockchains that avoid the high cost of transacting, “the transfer of tokens from Ethereum to Layer 2 and between different Layer 2 chains is a slow process, taking anywhere from 30 minutes to 7 days.”
Maker Teleport “addresses this usability shortcoming by avoiding the need to withdraw tokens to Layer 1 before bridging to another Layer 2 network, instead enabling almost instant teleportation of its stablecoin DAI directly between supported Layer 2s, or to Ethereum itself.”
This feature is “a key step in MakerDAO’s Multichain Strategy, a roadmap published by the MakerDAO Protocol Engineering Core Unit with the purpose of aligning views and resources towards a multichain development of the Maker Protocol.” The launch of Maker Teleport now “enables Fast Withdrawals and L2-to-L2 Teleport, integral features within the multichain vision.”
Fast Withdrawals “refers to the ability to teleport DAI from Layer 2 to Layer 1 instantly, with no need to wait for fraud-proofs.” This feature is currently “available on Optimism and Arbitrum, with further projects to be onboarded in the near future.”
Arbitrum and Optimism “represent the top two Layer 2 projects by total value locked, with $2.31Bn and $1.31Bn of assets under management respectively.” Both projects are optimistic rollups that “facilitate more transactions, prevent fraud, and lower the cost of operating on the Ethereum blockchain network.” The L2-to-L2 Teleport feature that allows the transfer of DAI between Layer 2 networks “will be enabled in full in a future upgrade of Maker Teleport.”
Sam MacPherson, Protocol Engineering, MakerDAO said:
“Maker Teleport is a game changer for Maker and the wider Ethereum ecosystem. While the DeFi space has matured significantly over the past few years, many processes remain inefficient, complex or costly, dampening the user experience. Now, we can finally offer a fully trustless, decentralized solution that provides almost instant teleportation of DAI anyway across Layer 2 blockchains and Ethereum. Our users are free to enjoy all of the scalability and cost benefits of Layer 2 solutions with the added ability to instantly bridge virtually unlimited DAI liquidity.”
To support the deployment, MakerDAO is also “announcing a 10,000 DAI grant for any builder to develop a fully functional user interface for Maker Teleport to further enhance the user experience.”
As covered, MakerDAO claims it is “the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) that powers the longest-standing DeFi lending protocol and enables the creation of DAI, the original decentralized stablecoin.”
Governance of MakerDAO is “completely decentralized, with proposals tabled and voted on by the Maker Community, comprising people from all over the world.” Utilizing an embedded governance mechanism, the decentralized and self-sustaining Maker Community holds sole authority “to enact changes to the Maker Protocol through on-chain voting, using the native governance token, MKR.”