On today, the Wanchain team is proud to announce that Wanchain 5.0 Mainnet is live now! 
The launch of Wanchain 5.0 marks a landmark achievement in Wanchain’s cross-chain mechanism and cross-chain capabilites. Our cross-chain mechanism has been upgraded from semi-decentralization to a more perfect balance between decentralization and usability. Our Storeman nodes are now fully open to the community. Cross-chain capabilities are more affordable and scalable, allowing for native assets and tokens to flow securely and rapidly back and forth between any two chains connected by our wanBridges.
The version of client Gwan for Wanchain 5.0 is v2.1.6.
What Is Wanchain 5.0?
Wanchain 5.0’s permissionless cross-chain solution perfectly balances decentralization with usability. Our decentralized wanBridges form the core of Wanchain 5.0, which ensures the safe and stable operation of the entire cross-chain system via the economic mechanism of staking WAN coins. Our wanBridges enable rapid and affordable cross-chain value transfer without compromising on security.
Introducing the New Cross-chain wanBridges
Let’s take a look at the picture of Islands on the Ocean to illustrate Wanchain 5.0.
In the vast ocean of cross-chain cryptocurrencies, there are floating islands, beautiful but isolated. Each island represents a chain. Due to the barrier of the ocean, those islands are isolated from each other. Reflected in the crypto world, there are countless different public chains, consortium chains, and private chains. Each has their own different underlying frameworks, data structures, and APIs. Therefore, connecting one chain with another chain, especially for heterogeneous chains (those with significantly different technical infrastructure), is a major challenge.
In order to conduct regular business trading, people must build up cross-chain bridges between their two otherwise isolated islands. In the crypto world, those bridges are wanBridges that cross over from one chain to another. Eventually, wanBridges shall connect many different chains together. Each wanBridge represents a Storeman Group, which refers to a group of cross-chain nodes that secure a particular connection between two chains. Each Storeman node in the Storeman Group is like a solid bridge pillar, supporting the Storeman Group that monitors a particular bridge. At present, each wanBridge has 21 of these such pillars (i.e. 21 Storeman nodes) that, as a unit, secure the connection between two blockchains. These nodes represent actual Storeman node operators, who perform work to secure the chain and are compensated with fees denominated in WAN coins. Such pillars are costly for node operators to build up and maintain because they have to stake a minimum amount of WAN coins as deposit collateral. Currently, a minimum of 10,000 WAN coins are required in the current implementation of the Wanchain cross-chain mechanism.
The Capacity of wanBridge Traffic Can Be Improved by Staking, Delegation and New wanBridges
How to improve the traffic capacity between the two islands? The so-called capacity, to put it bluntly, is how to maximize the amount of assets that exist on-chain that can be transferred to another chain.
There are two ways:
- Broaden the width of a wanBridge and increase the traffic capacity of this bridge. In the Storeman Group, each Storeman should strive to keep increasing its own WAN deposits to continuously widen the bridge. Meanwhile, Storeman node operators can attract WAN coin holders to delegate their WAN coins to the Storeman nodes, so as to further broaden the bridge by delegating more amount of WAN. In the current cross-chain mechanism design, the collateralization rate of the Storeman Group between Wanchain and Ethereum is 200%. In other words, for every 2000 WAN pledge, it allows the amount of crosschain assets up to a value of 1000 WAN worth of WAN, ETH or ERC 20 tokens to traverse the WAN-ETH wanBridge.
- Build up a new wanBridge between the two islands to increase the traffic capcity. In other words, a new Storeman Group can be established for the two chains. The operating mechanism of this Storeman Group is consistent with the previous Storeman Group. The bridge can be widened by more staking and delegation amount of WAN coins.
Mechanism Guarantee of Wanchain 5.0
Why does the water in the ocean not seep into the earth? Because there is an undersea crust and mantle that hold up the vast ocean. In the cross-chain ocean, the whole set of cross-chain mechanism runs smoothly, safely and efficiently because the economic mechanism and security mechanism embedded in Wanchain 5.0 have the same effect on cross-chain assets as the crust and mantle has on the ocean.
Economic Mechanism Guarantee
Overall rewards design:
- No cross-chain service fee (temporarily subsidized by Wanchain Foundation)
- Incentive paid to cross-chain Storeman Node operators who run nodes
- Incentive paid to delegators who contribute stake to Storeman nodes
- Total Storeman reward is limited with a hard cap to ensure that the high rate of return doesn’t cause too large an amount of funds to move away from Proof of Stake
In Wanchain 5.0, cross-chain bridges are built and run by groups of Storeman nodes. Storeman operators stake a security deposit in order to ensure honest behavior. Delegators may contribute additional stake to Storeman nodes in order to increase the cross-chain asset transfer limits and share in network rewards.
Secruity Mechanism Guarantee
Wanchain applies different threshold signature schemes (TSS) according to the technical structures of blockchain systems. For blockchain systems that do not support smart contracts (such as Bitcoin), we apply the ECDSA TSS scheme. For blockchain systems that support smart contracts (such as Ethereum and EOS), we apply the Schnorr TSS scheme. Wanchain 5.0 vastly improves the underlying TSS schemes, which ensures the security and decentralization of the whole system.
Wanchain 5.0 adopts a consensus-based method to verify cross-chain information. Based on the idea of “signature is consensus,” we combine the verification of cross-chain information with the management of locked accounts. Specifically, a Storeman node verifies the cross-chain transaction first on the original chain locally, then generates a corresponding signature share, and afterwards sends to the destination chain. Once the number of signature shares exceeds the two-thirds (2/3) threshold, it means that the Storeman nodes, working as a Storeman Group, have reached consensus on that cross-chain transaction. At the same time, these signature shares are constructed into the complete signature, thus triggering the generation and release of the cross-chain assets on the chain at the other end of the wanBridge.
Wanchain 5.0 Cross-chain Products Family
With the official launch of Wanchain 5.0 mainnet, we will continuously launch brand-new and full series of cross-chain products over the course of the next few weeks, allowing users to experience the charms of Wanchain 5.0 cross-chain functionalities. Upgrades to the entire Wanchain product family are included:
- WanWallet Desktop
- WanWallet Mobile
- WanMask
- WanWallet Offline
- Wanchain Explorer
- Web Bridge
- More surprises!
We wil release a new version of WanWallet Desktop on November 11th and beging the public election of Storeman nodes this week. Stay tuned!
A Whole Family of Cross-chain DeFi Dapps
Wanchain is actively investing in the development of a cross-chain DeFi ecosystem. Yesterday, we saw the release of FinNexus Options on Wanchain, which saw over $210,000 in digital assets contributed to its collateral pool within 24 hours. This is just the first DeFi-focused liquidity mining dapp to debut on Wanchain. More are coming in the next few weeks!
We have launched our own Dapp Store. We have adjusted the gas price from 180 Gwin to 1 Gwin to better accommodate yield-hungry DeFi farmers. Our aim is to provide a sound ecosystem for developers, operators and ordinary users that maximizes the exposure of Wanchain Dapps, minimizes the cost of Dapp operation and maintenance, and enhances user experience. With the explosion of DeFi applications such as lending and farming, Wanchain community enthusiasts and partners have set their sights on this field. Many cross-chain DeFi dapps on Wanchain are poised to be released.
The debut of Wanchain 5.0 makes it easier for the Wanchain community to launch a series of cross-chain DeFi dapps. Take a look at what’s on the horizon:
- WanSwap, a crosschain-based decentralized P2P trading platform
- WanLend, a crosschain-based decentralized lending platform
- wanToken Farm, a yield farming DeFi dapp
These three dapps are just what we know are coming in the next few weeks! There’s no telling what our community of dedicated WAN Fans has been working on.
Wanchain wholehartedly welcomes partners and developers to develop Dapps and jointly promote the development and prosperity of the Wanchain cross-chain DeFi ecosystem.
Wanchain Vision
In the future, by establishing the decentralized Cross-chain Bank, Wanchain will provide global users with one-stop DeFi services that cover multiple scenarios and a full range of industries. Whether you are an institutional user or an individual user, you will benefit from Wanchain’s Cross-chain Bank. Everyone can be a provider of financial services as well as a customer of financial services. All traditional financial services such as lending, savings, financial management, payment, exchange, trading, etc. will be presented in a brand-new display on this decentralized and comprehensive Cross-chain Bank, and will continue to accumlate and burst out greater finanical innovation.
Welcome to Wanchain 5.0!
About Wanchain
Wanchain is the infrastructure connecting the decentralized financial world. Wanchain’s live cross-blockchain solution is EVM-based, includes optional private transactions, and provides a decentralized, permissionless, and secure approach for interoperability. Wanchain has employees globally with teams in China, the USA, and other team members around the world in Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Written By:
Bryan Ye
Director of Marketing at Wanchain
