Cross-Chain Bridge v2: Bridge Tokens & NFTs. Provide Liquidity. Earn.

Cross-Chain Bridge
10 min readJan 25, 2022

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We are thrilled to announce that today we are (soft-)launching our Cross-Chain Bridge v2.0. You can now provide liquidity, earn rewards, and bridge tokens and NFTs on a security-focused, fast, and user-friendly platform. You are also able to list your project’s token permissionlessly. The limits for liquidity pools will be increased slowly as we move through the soft launch phase and open it up to the market for unlimited deposits.

In this article, you’ll find more information about:

  1. Providing Liquidity & earning
  2. Dual Token Model — $BRIDGE and $TXL
  3. Benefits for $TXL Holders & Investors
  4. Benefits for other Token Holders
  5. Other unique Bridge Features
  6. Documentation & Code
  7. From Soft-Launch to Public

1. Provide Liquidity & Earn

All the details can be viewed in our GitBook documentation here. But in summary, this is how it works:

We are combining a bridge with DeFi. For this, we are replicating the very successful model that has already been proven to work for DEXs, to use for our Cross-Chain Bridge. A good comparison is PancakeSwap; the overall model is the same except for the fact that our liquidity pools are single-asset liquidity pools without any impermanent loss risk!

Step 1: Provide liquidity

You can provide liquidity to one of the liquidity pools and receive LP tokens for doing so. As pools are single-asset liquidity pools, there’s no risk of Impermanent Loss (that IS different from PancakeSwap or a DEX). This can be $USDC, $USDT, $TXL, or any token you would like to earn passive income from that is listed on the Cross-Chain Bridge.

Step 2. Stake your LP tokens

Once you have the LP tokens, you have one or two options: You can stake your LP tokens in a Liquidity Mining Pool, or, if available for an asset, in a Farm. Both options are explained below.

Earn Option 1: Liquidity Mining

If you stake your LP tokens in a Liquidity Mining Pool, you earn more of the tokens you are providing liquidity for. The rewards, or APRs, are calculated at 15% of the protocol incentive or bridging fees collected and paid out in the same token.

Examples: If you provide $USDC liquidity, you earn more $USDC from the corresponding $USDC Liquidity Mining Pool. If you provide $TXL liquidity, you earn more $TXL from the corresponding $TXL Liquidity Mining Pool. The more people who bridge the asset you provide liquidity for during the time your LP tokens are staked in the Liquidity Mining Pool, the higher your APR.

Earn Option 2: Farming

If a Farm for the asset provided is available, you also have the option of staking your LP tokens in the corresponding Farm.

Farms have multipliers and earn rewards from the per block minted $BRIDGE farm token. This is comparable to a Farm in PancakeSwap, where you don’t earn rewards in the asset you provided liquidity for, but you earn the $CAKE farm token. PancakeSwap also has Farms with multipliers and Farms earn relatively less or more of the newly minted tokens depending on the multiplier.

With the $BRIDGE earned from the Farms; you have two options, again:

  1. You can sell them on a DEX for a one-time profit.
  2. You can stake the earned $BRIDGE tokens in any Reward Pool you would like to generate another passive income from — as you will be earning parts of the protocol incentive (or bridging) fees in the asset you chose. You will continue to earn for as long as your $BRIDGE tokens are staked in the Reward Pool. The rewards, or APRs, are calculated at 70% of the collected protocol incentive or bridging fees (as opposed to the 15% you get in a direct Liquidity Mining Pool) of the token the Reward Pool belongs to. The more people who bridge the asset you provide liquidity for during the time your LP tokens are staked in the Farm, the higher your APR.

Examples: If you put your $BRIDGE in the $TXL Reward Pool, you get $TXL as a reward. If you put your $BRIDGE in the $USDC Reward Pool, you get $USDC, etc. If a user withdraws $BRIDGE from a Reward Pool, they must pay a withdrawal fee — which is used to burn $BRIDGE and will be implemented to incentivize long-term/indefinite staking (you will be able to earn the withdrawal fee back after a certain period).

The Reward Pools are comparable to PancakeSwap’s “Syrup Pools”: You can stake $BRIDGE and earn any token you want (in the PancakeSwap comparison, you can stake $CAKE and earn any token you choose). A key difference, however, is the length of time you can earn passive income (as long as the $BRIDGE tokens are staked in the pool). As opposed to PancakeSwap, the Reward Pools of the Cross-Chain Bridge don’t have a set end date and run as long as the token is listed or the Cross-Chain Bridge DAO decides to delist the token, respectively.

2. Dual Token Model — $BRIDGE and $TXL

The $BRIDGE token is purely a farm token for the Cross-Chain Bridge. It is needed as an incentive to attract liquidity provisioning. There’s no private sale. The tokens will be minted per block (the number can be viewed in the tokenomics section of the GitBook). The $BRIDGE token can be farmed and put into Reward Pools to earn more rewards — for as long as they are staked in the pool.

The $TXL token is used in various parts of the Cross-Chain Bridge, leading to many benefits for $TXL token holders. The reason $TXL is implemented is $TXL token holders will be the ones running the network the Cross-Chain Bridge is built on.

All the details about how both tokens are used are shown here.

3. Benefits for $TXL Holders & Investors

You get the $BRIDGE token benefit by being able to stake the tokens in the Reward Pools. $TXL holders and investors benefit in many ways from the Cross-Chain Bridge.

1. Plenty of options to earn passive income:

  • Provide $TXL liquidity and earn more $TXL directly from the $TXL Liquidity Mining Pool (15% of the protocol incentive or bridging fees).
  • Provide $TXL liquidity, earn $BRIDGE from a Farm and subsequently earn $TXL from the $TXL Reward Pool (70% of the protocol incentive or bridging fees).
  • Provide $TXL liquidity, earn $BRIDGE from a Farm and subsequently earn any other token (e.g., USDC or USDT) from a Reward Pool.
  • Provide $USDC, $USDT, or any other supported token liquidity, earn $BRIDGE from a Farm and subsequently earn $TXL from the $TXL Reward Pool.

2. We have decided not to distribute $TXL rewards in the Farms to attract liquidity, this protects against $TXL inflation and so benefits hodlers.

3. $TXL gets a Farm with a high multiplier. This attracts $TXL liquidity which locks $TXL and makes larger amounts of $TXL bridgeable.

4. With every Token Bridge transfer, a bridging user pays a protocol incentive or bridging fee, respectively. 15% of these fees go to the corresponding Liquidity Mining Pool, 70% go to the corresponding Reward Pool and 15% of all protocol incentive or bridging fees (independent of the asset bridged) will be used for $TXL Buy-Back-and-Burns. This can create continuous buys on a DEX and deflation.

5. With every NFT Bridge transfer, a bridging user pays a protocol incentive or bridging fee (after an initial launch campaign where NFT bridgings are completely free). The protocol incentive or bridging fees collected from NFT bridgings are (fully) used for $TXL Buy-Back-and-Burns.

6. Not every project or token gets a Farm — only those that are important to the $BRIDGE or $TXL, or after a successful application. If a project application is accepted, they need to allocate a certain number of their tokens to the corresponding Reward Pool. This leads to higher APRs in the Reward Pool, makes the $BRIDGE token more attractive to farm or buy, and eventually makes it more attractive to provide bridge liquidity. This leads to more protocol incentive or bridging fees (and a greater number of projects interested in using the Cross-Chain Bridge) and thus more $TXL Buy-Back-and-Burns, leading to more $TXL buys on a DEX and deflation.

7. We are planning many more features that benefit $TXL holders and investors. There will be some type of governance model and we are in discussions about direct $TXL Staking to run Cross-Chain Bridge nodes from the decentralized network that is hosting it. More to follow soon.

4. Benefits for other Token Holders

All hodlers of tokens supported by the bridge (i.e., Stablecoins, partnership tokens, or any other listed token) have the option to bridge their tokens, or whitelisted NFTs, to their network of choice — securely and efficiently.

In addition, they have plenty of options to earn passive income:

  • Provide token liquidity and directly earn more from the corresponding Liquidity Mining Pool (15% of the protocol incentive or bridging fees).
  • If a Farm for a token exists: Provide token liquidity, earn $BRIDGE from the Farm and subsequently sell on a DEX for a one-time profit or earn any other token (e.g., USDC or USDT) from a Reward Pool (70% of all protocol incentive or bridging fees in that asset) for as long as you keep your $BRIDGE in the Reward Pool.

If a Farm does not exist for a token, you can ask the initiators of the project/token to submit an application here. This would open up the opportunity to earn 70% of the protocol incentive or bridging fees from a Reward Pool instead of only the 15% of a Liquidity Mining Pool.

5. Other Unique Bridge Features

Permissionless Self-Listing

Projects can self-list their tokens if the contract addresses are the same on all desired networks. This is a huge advantage compared to other centralized bridges or bridge solutions that require permission. If you e.g., have a new project and want to launch, you can simply self-list on your desired DEX and the Cross-Chain Bridge.

We recommend that projects use the same wallet as the deployer of the token contract and the same nonce on every Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) network because this results in the same token address for all networks. Firstly, it is easier to communicate that a token has the same address on all networks, and also an external service provider (like the Cross-Chain Bridge), can be sure that the tokens belong together.

The only situation where whitelisting from a bridge representative would be needed is where the contract addresses are different on the different networks. This is for scam protection.

More Network Support

We will start with Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, and Polygon. However, this is just the beginning of the journey. True interoperability means the bridge needs to support different networks, as blockchain users might use different ecosystems for different use cases.

We are currently planning to add Fantom, Avalanche, Solana, and Harmony next, and our goal is to add major EVM networks this year and enable direct token and NFT bridging between them all.

NFT Support

Tixl’s Cross-Chain Bridge will also enable the bridging of NFTs. This will allow NFTs to be used in more marketplaces, more games, etc.

This will work by way of having NFT tokens whitelisted and minted as “Bridged Collections” on the other networks. At the start, as a launch campaign, NFT bridgings will be completely free of charge. Afterward, a fixed protocol incentive or bridging fee will be collected which will be used for $TXL Buy-Back-and-Burns.

6. Documentation & Code

All information about features, technical details, $BRIDGE tokenomics, and more can be found in the GitBook.

The Code will be made open-source and can be looked at in GitHub.

7. From Soft-Launch to Public

During this first phase, the Cross-Chain Bridge will have maximum deposit limits for the liquidity pools of USDC, USDT, and TXL. This is why it’s termed a soft-launch. The limits are to evaluate all features, smart contract calls, and $BRIDGE tokenomics in a live environment — and to keep rewards attractive. Once everything has been tested in the live environment and once the bridge volume has increased, we will slowly, but regularly, increase the limits to open up the liquidity pools to more and more users/liquidity.

IMPORTANT: Make sure you follow both our Twitter and our Telegram Announcement Channel so that you are one of the first to hear about limit increases. Pools will fill very quickly.

As of today, and until further notice, the liquidity pool deposit limits per network are the following:

Ethereum

  • USDT: $250k
  • USDC: $250k
  • TXL: 1,400,000 TXL

Binance Smart Chain

  • USDT: $250k
  • USDC: $250k
  • TXL: 1,400,000 TXL

Polygon

  • USDT: $250k
  • USDC: $250k
  • TXL: 1,400,000 TXL

Reaching another Milestone

The connection of blockchains is becoming more and more relevant. Everybody understands that the future is multi-chain and that bridges are the most important enabler for that.

From the first concept to the implementation of the Bridge, has been a fantastic journey. Many late nights, long weekends, and challenges were faced. The result was worth it — a tangible, usable product that the market needs.

The Cross-Chain Bridge is a good example of how Tixl continues to evolve — leading to greater opportunities, visibility, and market acknowledgment.

Without the brilliant and dedicated (and growing!) Tixl team none of this would be possible. We also fully appreciate the support and loyalty of our Tixl investors, both old and new. THANK YOU!

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