In April 2021, ShapeShift announced cross-chain swaps via THORChain, enabling users to exchange native (unwrapped) Bitcoin for Ethereum and Litecoin for the first time. THORChain had solved the problem of cross-chain trading by building bi-directional bridges between blockchains at the protocol level in a permissionless, non-custodial manner—and ShapeShift was the first major exchange to integrate with it and offer THORChain trading to users.
ShapeShift founder Erik Voorhees announced the integration on his Twitter back in 2021 saying: “Native (unwrapped) Ethereum in native (unwrapped) bitcoin out. A $5,000 trade, no intermediary, no custody, and no KYC. Shapeshift today launched decentralized cross-chain trading, by integrating THORChain (which also launched today),” he added on April 13, 2021. Additionally, the Shapeshift founder published a comprehensive blog post about the technology.
No KYC, Multi-Chain Swaps
Since decentralizing into a DAO and releasing our new open source web app, we knew that we wanted to continue offering this awesome capability to our users, who will now be able to use the ShapeShift web and mobile app to trade to/from the native assets that THORChain supports. The protocol currently supports swaps between seven major ecosystems: bitcoin (BTC), ether (ETH), binance coins (BNB), dogecoin (DOGE), litecoin (LTC), bitcoin cash (BCH) and rune (RUNE). Notable ERC-20 assets THORChain supports include: FOX, AAVE, XDEFI, DAI and YFI. Recent updates on THORChain include an upgrade to Mainnet on June 22nd and an integration of Cosmos to the network on July 5th.
Simply connect your wallet and trade through any of our supported wallets. This integration is a step closer to achieving our vision and positioning our web app as the truly universal application for all your DeFi needs—all chains, all protocols, all wallets.
About THORChain
THORChain, founded in 2018, is a community-led project dedicated to enabling the decentralized exchange of assets across blockchains in a non-custodial manner. The cross-chain liquidity protocol is based on Tendermint & Cosmos-SDK. It does not peg or wrap assets, it simply determines how to move them in response to user actions. A simple explanation is that THORChain is “like Uniswap, but multi-chain.” The mainnet version of THORChain launched on April 13th, 2021 and offers the following:
● THORChain allows anyone in the world to trade one digital asset on one chain with another digital asset on another chain in a frictionless, decentralized, trust-minimized way. There are no custodians. There is no wrapping.
● THORChain also allows anyone to earn yield on their digital assets, and this too is provided in a frictionless, decentralized, trust-minimized way.
THORChain observes incoming user deposits to vaults, executes business logic (swap, add/remove liquidity), and processes outbound transactions. THORChain is primarily a leaderless vault manager, ensuring that every stage of the process is byzantine-fault-tolerant.
THORChain's key objective is to be resistant to centralization while facilitating cross-chain liquidity. THORChain only secures the assets in its vaults, and has economic guarantees that those assets are safe.
Closing Thoughts
ShapeShift and THORChain share many of the same values, one of which is providing access to true decentralized, immutable finance. Continuing this integration with THORChain allows us to stick to these values and continue to allow anyone in the world to trade one digital asset with another in a frictionless, decentralized, non-custodial way.