Crypto has come a long way in the short sixteen years since the Bitcoin whitepaper. What started as a short missive to a mailing list of tech geeks, blossomed into a multi-trillion dollar asset class. Today, we have millions of daily active users, hundreds of applications, millions of daily transactions, and billions in daily volumes. Yet this rampant growth has led to one key emergent problem that is hindering continued market-level progress: fragmentation. With the exciting growth in L1s, L2s, and applications, liquidity and mindshare is needlessly fragmented, siloing users and capital. This fragmentation has handicapped the promise of an open, decentralized, censorship-resistant ecosystem of on-chain value. Solutions are finally emerging to help solve this problem.
Analog connects the blockchain data of all users, platforms, and apps across all blockchains. They provide a suite of omni-chain interoperability protocols that simplify access to Web3 data and remove barriers to cross-chain communication. The user experience is seamless and cheap. The chain is designed so that users only pay the gas fees once in native currency on the origin chain without requiring them to post additional transactions on the target chains or perform relays. Their platform can solve a number of problems including giving users the ability to create out-of-the-box cross-chain primitives including decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, yield aggregators, NFT marketplaces, gaming and metaverse platforms, and much much more.
The network has seen robust growth since the launch of testnet in Q2 2024. Today they have 325k+ active testnet participants, 150K+ active developer accounts, -1.5M views on their proprietary developer platform Analog Watch, 10M+ visiting website views, and 2k+ Hackathon participants. Two key projects to watch building on top of Analog are Pixelport and ZenSwap. PixelPort is an omni-chain NFT platform enabling cross-chain minting, transfers, and fractionalization of NFTs across chains using Analog’s message-passing protocol. It provides developers with a framework for building cross-chain NFT applications. ZenSwap is a competitor to LayerZero Labs’ Stargate Finance. ZenSwap allows the swapping of a broader range of tokens across chains. Its USDC-based routing model supports swaps for niche or illiquid tokens. For instance, a token with good liquidity on a cheaper chain like Arbitrum but low liquidity on Ethereum can be easily swapped using ZenSwap’s USDC bridge, even if Stargate lacks the necessary liquidity pools.
Protocols that facilitate chain abstraction have been a key vertical MV has focused on since 2021. Despite the clear market need for a solution, only two clear solutions have come to market: Axelar and LayerZero. Both protocols boost $1B FDV’s despite still not finding product-market fit. Axelar is strong in technology but weak in business development and go to market. Analog’s Substrate-based approach offers easier updates and a more versatile use case in cross-chain queries, setting it apart from Axelar’s token transfer focus. The tangible use-case focus has already attracted more users on testnet than Axelar mainnet. LayerZero has been strong in go-to-market due to early successes in liquidity pools, but Analog offers a more secure and product-focused alternative by avoiding high-risk areas like omnichain liquidity pools and focusing on queries and message passing. These security risks for LayerZero may prove to be serious long-term issues.
Analog is the largest investment in our MV Capital Venture Fund I. We believe Analog will be the driving force behind bringing unified interoperability across the market. For interested investors, Analog is closing a strategic round in early Q4 before a late Q4 launch across major exchanges. Please reach out to our Fund Partner Tom Dunleavy (TG:@dunleavy89) and he can help facilitate an introduction for interested investors.
About MV Global
Established in 2019, MV Global has emerged as a force in the Web3 landscape focused on early-stage investments and venture building. Our mission is clear: to partner with mavericks, visionaries, and free thinkers to leverage blockchain-enabled technologies to build for the future.
