Exclusive Interview with Wormhole Foundation COO: How a Hackathon Project Grew into a $2.5 Billion Unicorn in 3 Years

Interviewer: kit, Mia, ChainCatcher

Editor: Marco, ChainCatcher

Interviewee: Dan Reecer, Wormhole Foundation

On March 7, the cross-chain protocol Wormhole, valued at $2.5 billion, announced the issuance of its token W and promised to airdrop 617 million tokens to past users, accounting for 6% of the total supply, with nearly 400,000 wallets set to receive the airdrop.

Wormhole was born out of a hackathon and launched by blockchain infrastructure company Certus One in October 2020, initially taking the form of a direct token bridge between the Ethereum and Solana ecosystems. Developers at Jump Crypto released the second version of the protocol in August 2021, utilizing a Proof of Authority (PoA) guardian network as an oracle and employing a permissionless relay network to transmit messages across chains.

As a decentralized cross-chain protocol, Wormhole integrates smart contracts with cryptographic technology to ensure secure and reliable seamless transmission of assets and data across chains. Through Wormhole, users can easily transfer assets; developers gain broader innovation space, promoting the expansion of the blockchain ecosystem and industry applications.

In November last year, Wormhole completed a $225 million funding round at a $2.5 billion valuation, becoming a unicorn in the blockchain industry.

Recently, ChainCatcher interviewed Dan Reecer, Chief Operating Officer of Wormhole Foundation, to unveil the mysteries of Wormhole.

Dan Reecer graduated from one of the top business schools in the United States—Indiana University Kelley School of Business. After accumulating four years of experience in healthcare brand marketing, he ventured into the crypto space and has been deeply involved in the cryptocurrency field for over five years, previously serving as Chief Growth Officer at Acala, Marketing Director at Wanchain, and leading growth projects at Web3 Foundation, contributing significantly to the launch of Polkadot. Dan Reecer joined Wormhole Foundation in 2023, continuing his exploration and practice in crypto projects.

In addition to announcing the airdrop and other matters, Wormhole has also made new moves in promoting the adoption of zero-knowledge proof (ZK) technology. Following funding Lurk Lab and Zpoken, on February 15, the Wormhole Foundation announced a partnership with the Succinct team to build an Ethereum ZK light client, aimed at decentralizing message verification work, reducing platform trust, and enhancing cross-chain composability and network security.

Furthermore, in terms of hardware resources, Wormhole has partnered with AMD, which provides enterprise-level FPGA hardware accelerators to support the development of the Wormhole ecosystem.

From Hackathon Project to $2.5 Billion Valuation

ChainCatcher: Wormhole has evolved from a bi-directional token bridge between Ethereum and Solana into a universal messaging protocol connecting multiple chains in the ecosystem. How did Wormhole grow from a hackathon project to the current Wormhole protocol?

Dan Reecer: Since the foundation funded the project, Wormhole has continuously achieved breakthroughs in the cross-chain field. In 2020, to break the isolation of Solana from other mainstream networks, the Wormhole team developed the first version and successfully held the inaugural Wormhole hackathon, involving collaborations among multiple teams to build cross-chain applications using Wormhole on the blockchain.

The core goal of the first version of Wormhole was to achieve interoperability between Ethereum and Solana.

Wormhole has made significant progress and now connects over 30 different blockchains. Recently, Wormhole reached a milestone by sending one billion cross-chain messages.

Currently, over 200 applications have been built on the Wormhole platform, with thousands of developers using Wormhole for cross-chain transactions daily, enhancing the liquidity and user base of their applications.

ChainCatcher: Uniswap chose Wormhole as its primary cross-chain messaging protocol for its cross-chain deployment. What unique advantages does Wormhole's cross-chain protocol have compared to others?

Dan Reecer: First, Wormhole has a broad cross-chain coverage, supporting execution environments for six blockchain virtual machines, including Ethereum, Solana, Aptos, NEAR, Sui, and Algorand, and integrates them, which is one of the reasons many projects choose Wormhole for cross-chain solutions.

Secondly, Wormhole is 100% open-source, with all code publicly available on GitHub, having undergone multiple audits and will regularly be reviewed to ensure security. Recently, we hired a Chief Security Officer to collaborate with the Asymmetric Research team, focusing on the security of the entire platform.

Additionally, unlike other cross-chain protocols that are typically controlled by multi-signatures from two parties, Wormhole features a highly decentralized characteristic.

The core organizational structure of Wormhole is based on the PoA (Proof of Authority) mechanism, consisting of a group of trusted entities known as Guardians. The Wormhole Guardian network comprises 19 members, including Chorus One, Everstake, Figment, and xLabs. Every message transmitted through Wormhole must be validated by 13 out of these 19 validators before being sent to another blockchain, and currently, all validators are within the governance system.

Moreover, Wormhole closely monitors developer needs and provides a diverse range of products. Wormhole encompasses five core products, aiming to build a comprehensive interoperability platform rather than being limited to a single product.

For example, Remote Queries used by Synthetix allow data to be extracted from any chain data source to another blockchain, and this product is still in the testing phase.

Uniswap is using Wormhole for cross-chain governance, with Wormhole providing cross-chain governance information data transmission services to ensure consistency in governance deployment across various interoperability protocols.

Plans to Launch ZK Light Client

ChainCatcher: Last month, Wormhole announced its ZK roadmap, planning to deploy ZK light client cross-chain infrastructure for multi-chain in the coming months. How do you see the development of future cross-chain infrastructure? How do you think these new ZK light clients will change the status quo in the blockchain industry, and how will they help Wormhole achieve its long-term goals?

Dan Reecer: The Wormhole team has always adhered to the core spirit of cryptocurrency and is actively committed to widely applying ZK technology on the Wormhole platform to reduce reliance on centralized factors.

Once ZK technology is officially launched, developers will have two options for transmitting data or tokens: continue using the existing validator system or choose a completely trustless ZK technology, freeing themselves from reliance on validators.

Wormhole places great importance on ZK technology because it will effectively reduce the Wormhole system's dependence on company trust, further promoting the decentralization process. Through continuous technological innovation and optimization, Wormhole will provide developers with a more secure, efficient, and decentralized interoperability platform.

Wormhole has funded three teams: Lurk, Zpoken, and Succinct, and has also received hardware support from AMD in areas like FPGA and GPU to optimize the speed and cost-effectiveness of ZK technology implementation.

Wormhole expects to launch the ZK client this year, achieving seamless interoperability between chains like Ethereum and NEAR.

ChainCatcher: Will Wormhole launch a dedicated ZK layer to manage these ZK proofs transmitted across different chains? Or will it choose specific chains to address this issue?

Dan Reecer: Wormhole does not need to develop a dedicated ZK layer for this purpose. Instead, Wormhole is developing a client similar to ZK that can deploy various technologies across different chains while seamlessly integrating without needing to develop underlying ZK solutions like ZKSync or Polygon's ZK chain.

While ZK is typically used for privacy protection, in the context of Wormhole, ZK is used to reduce centralized trust and enhance decentralization.

Committed to Cross-Chain Ecosystem Development

ChainCatcher: In December last year, the parallel EVM blockchain Monad announced a partnership with Wormhole and achieved technical integration. Could you elaborate on the details of the collaboration between Wormhole and Monad and the impact of this partnership?

Dan Reecer: Wormhole will attract users and liquidity for Monad, injecting vitality into its ecosystem. Users can easily transfer SOL from Solana to Monad through Wormhole and freely participate in any activities within the Monad ecosystem, including DeFi.

For Wormhole, this is not only a challenge but also an excellent opportunity to expand market share and transaction volume.

ChainCatcher: Will Wormhole expand its coverage to different types of projects? Or will these projects focus solely on message interoperability? Is there any consideration to collaborate with large ecosystems like Optimism or Arbitrum?

Dan Reecer: The current plan remains focused on the interoperability field, which is one of the biggest opportunities in the entire industry.

Given the exponential growth of the number of blockchains and the industry as a whole, bridging between chains has become crucial. It is undeniable that the world is moving towards a multi-chain environment, requiring a secure and trust-minimized cross-chain facility to drive this expansion and promote the prosperous development of the industry.

For users, the focus is not limited to the platform itself but more on cross-chain needs.

That’s why Wormhole's emphasis has always been on building more products and seamlessly integrating them into a suite of tools. Currently, Wormhole is actively collaborating with application and blockchain developers, as well as issuers of cross-chain tokens, to increase the number of covered applications, further expand the range of cross-chain or multi-chain tokens, and initiate community governance to jointly promote the development of the cross-chain ecosystem, continuing this path for the next 5 to 10 years.

ChainCatcher: In November last year, Wormhole raised $225 million at a $2.5 billion valuation. What are the plans following this funding round? Additionally, what considerations led to the establishment of Wormhole Labs by the team behind Wormhole?

Dan Reecer: Wormhole has always placed engineering and product at its core. As the Wormhole ecosystem develops, multiple collaborative teams have gradually formed. Currently, Wormhole consists of the foundation, Wormhole Labs, X Labs, and the security-focused Asymmetric Research team, which together constitute Wormhole's core strength.

In terms of developers, Wormhole has provided various grants at hackathon events in Denver and Ethereum and will continue to participate in similar activities, aiming to strengthen the developer ecosystem. Additionally, Wormhole is focused on recruiting top talent.

ChainCatcher: Wormhole has launched a cross-chain ecosystem fund and XGrant funding program. What are the specific criteria for selecting funded projects? Are there plans to increase funding amounts in the future to support more promising projects?

Dan Reecer: X Grants are specifically established for open-source projects within the Wormhole ecosystem, with relevant funding criteria available on the official website, and self-application will be evaluated and screened by a dedicated team.

Wormhole has also partnered with Borderless Capital to launch a cross-chain ecosystem fund, aimed at investing in project teams that can drive the development of the entire cross-chain ecosystem, which have been closely integrated with Wormhole from the start.

Additionally, regarding the Wormhole Base Camp acceleration program operated by Outlier Ventures, funded by Borderless Capital, it focuses on supporting early Web3 founders. Currently, five startups have been selected to receive a $200,000 investment from Borderless Capital.

Wormhole is committed to supporting the development of the entire cross-chain ecosystem, and whether it will expand the funding scale needs further research and preparation.

ChainCatcher: With Bitcoin recently breaking new highs and the crypto market sentiment continuing to rise, will this accelerate the progress and development of some projects at Wormhole?

Dan Reecer: Wormhole has not changed its direction due to market fluctuations. Wormhole has been developed for over three years and has experienced market cycles. Wormhole focuses on its goals, releasing new products and improving existing ones.

Market cycles may have caused some disturbances on social media, but Wormhole has always stayed true to its mission and is committed to achieving its goals.