Entretien avec le COO de la Wormhole Foundation : comment passer en 3 ans d'un projet de hackathon à une licorne valorisée à 2,5 milliards de dollars ?
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Entretien avec le COO de la Wormhole Foundation : comment passer en 3 ans d'un projet de hackathon à une licorne valorisée à 2,5 milliards de dollars ?
Wormhole reste fidèle à sa vision initiale et s'efforce de réaliser sa mission.
Dédié à des analyses Web3 approfondiesInterviewers : kit, Mia, ChainCatcher
Editor : Marco, ChainCatcher
Interviewee : Dan Reecer, Wormhole Foundation
On March 7, Wormhole, a cross-chain protocol valued at $2.5 billion, announced the launch of its token W and pledged to airdrop 617 million tokens—6% of the total supply—to past users, benefiting nearly 400,000 wallets.
Born from a hackathon, Wormhole was launched in October 2020 by blockchain infrastructure company Certus One, initially as a direct token bridge between the Ethereum and Solana ecosystems. In August 2021, developers within Jump Crypto released the protocol’s second version, leveraging a Proof-of-Authority (PoA) network of Guardians as oracles and a permissionless network of relayers to transmit messages across chains.
As a decentralized cross-chain protocol, Wormhole integrates smart contracts with cryptographic technology to enable seamless and secure transfer of assets and data across blockchains. With Wormhole, users can easily transfer assets, while developers gain broader innovation opportunities, driving the expansion of blockchain ecosystems and real-world applications.
Last November, Wormhole raised $225 million at a $2.5 billion valuation, becoming a unicorn in the blockchain industry.
Recently, ChainCatcher sat down with Dan Reecer, Chief Operating Officer of the Wormhole Foundation, to uncover the story behind Wormhole.
Dan Reecer graduated from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business, one of America’s top business schools. After gaining four years of experience in healthcare brand marketing, he transitioned into the crypto space, where he has since spent over five years. He previously served as Chief Growth Officer at Acala, Marketing Director at Wanchain, led growth initiatives at the Web3 Foundation, and played a key role in launching Polkadot. Dan joined the Wormhole Foundation in 2023 to continue his exploration and practice in cryptocurrency projects.
Beyond the airdrop announcement, Wormhole is also making strides in advancing zero-knowledge (ZK) proof technology adoption. Following funding support for Lurk Lab and Zpoken, on February 15, the Wormhole Foundation announced a collaboration with Succinct to build an Ethereum ZK light client aimed at decentralizing message validation, reducing platform trust assumptions, and enhancing cross-chain composability and network security.
Additionally, in terms of hardware resources, Wormhole has partnered with AMD, which provides enterprise-grade FPGA hardware accelerators to support the development of the Wormhole ecosystem.
From Hackathon Project to $2.5 Billion Valuation
ChainCatcher: Wormhole evolved from a two-way token bridge between Ethereum and Solana into a universal messaging protocol connecting multiple chains across the ecosystem. How did Wormhole grow from a hackathon project into the protocol it is today?
Dan Reecer: Since its inception as a foundation-backed initiative, Wormhole has continuously achieved breakthroughs in the cross-chain domain. In 2020, to break Solana’s isolation from other major networks, the Wormhole team developed its first version and successfully hosted the inaugural Wormhole Hackathon, involving multiple teams building cross-chain applications using Wormhole on blockchain.
The core goal of Wormhole’s initial version 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 transmitting one billion cross-chain messages.
Currently, more than 200 applications have been built on the Wormhole platform, with thousands of developers daily using Wormhole to enhance their applications’ liquidity and user base through cross-chain integration.
ChainCatcher: Uniswap chose Wormhole as its primary cross-chain messaging protocol for its multi-chain deployment. What unique advantages does Wormhole offer compared to other protocols?
Dan Reecer: First, Wormhole offers broad coverage, supporting execution environments across six blockchain virtual machines including Ethereum, Solana, Aptos, NEAR, Sui, and Algorand, integrating them seamlessly—this is why many projects choose Wormhole for cross-chain operations.
Second, Wormhole is fully open-source, with all code publicly available on GitHub, audited multiple times, and subject to regular reviews to ensure security. Recently, we hired a Chief Security Officer and are collaborating with Asymmetric Research to strengthen platform-wide security.
Moreover, unlike most cross-chain protocols typically controlled by just two multisig parties, Wormhole stands out for its high degree of decentralization.
Wormhole’s core architecture is based on a Proof-of-Authority (PoA) 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—and every message transmitted via Wormhole must be validated by at least 13 of these 19 validators before being sent to another blockchain. All current validators operate within the governance system.
In addition, Wormhole closely listens to developer needs and offers diverse products. Wormhole encompasses five core offerings, aiming to build a comprehensive interoperability platform rather than focusing on a single product.
For example, Remote Queries—a feature used by Synthetix—allows data extraction from any chain’s data source to another blockchain; this product is currently still in testing.
Uniswap is leveraging Wormhole for cross-chain governance, relying on Wormhole to transmit governance-related data across chains, ensuring consistent governance deployment across various interoperable protocols.
Planned Rollout of ZK Light Clients
ChainCatcher: Last month, Wormhole unveiled its ZK roadmap, announcing plans to deploy multi-chain ZK light client infrastructure in the coming months. How do you envision the future evolution of cross-chain infrastructure? How will these new ZK light clients transform the current state of the blockchain industry, and how will they help Wormhole achieve its long-term goals?
Dan Reecer: The Wormhole team remains committed to the core principles of cryptocurrency and is actively working to widely integrate zk technology into the Wormhole platform, reducing reliance on centralized components.
Once zk technology goes live, developers will have two options for transferring data or tokens: continue using the existing validator system, or opt for a fully trustless zk solution that eliminates dependence on validators.
Wormhole places such strong emphasis on zk technology because it effectively reduces reliance on institutional trust within the system, further advancing decentralization. Through continuous technological innovation and optimization, Wormhole aims to provide developers with a more secure, efficient, and decentralized interoperability platform.
Wormhole has already funded three teams—Lurk, Zpoken, and Succinct—and secured hardware support from AMD in areas such as FPGAs and GPUs to optimize the speed and cost-efficiency of zk implementations.
Wormhole expects to launch its zk client this year, enabling seamless interoperability between chains like Ethereum and NEAR.
ChainCatcher: Will Wormhole launch a dedicated zk layer to manage these zk proofs transferred across different chains, or do you plan to leverage specific chains to address this challenge?
Dan Reecer: Wormhole does not need to develop a dedicated zk layer for this purpose. Instead, we are developing zk-based light clients that can be deployed across different chains, allowing seamless integration of various technologies without requiring a底层 zk solution like zkSync or Polygon’s zkEVM.
While zk is often associated with privacy, in Wormhole’s context, it is primarily used to minimize centralization of trust and enhance decentralization.
Commitment to Cross-Chain Ecosystem Development
ChainCatcher: In December last year, Monad, a parallel EVM blockchain, announced a partnership and technical integration with Wormhole. Could you elaborate on the details of this collaboration and its impact?
Dan Reecer: Wormhole will attract users and liquidity to Monad, injecting vitality into its ecosystem. Users will be able to easily bridge SOL from Solana to Monad via Wormhole and freely participate in any activities within the Monad ecosystem, including DeFi.
For Wormhole, this represents not only a challenge but also an excellent opportunity to expand market share and transaction volume.
ChainCatcher: Does Wormhole plan to broaden its coverage to include more types of projects, or will it remain focused solely on message interoperability? Are there plans to collaborate with large ecosystems like Optimism or Arbitrum?
Dan Reecer: Our current focus remains firmly on interoperability, which is one of the biggest opportunities in the entire industry.
Given the growing number of blockchains and the exponential expansion of the sector, bridging between chains has become critical. Undeniably, we are moving toward a multi-chain environment, requiring secure and minimally trusted cross-chain infrastructure to drive this expansion and foster industry growth.
For users, the focus isn’t just on individual platforms, but increasingly on cross-chain capabilities.
Precisely for this reason, Wormhole’s priority remains building more products and seamlessly integrating them into a unified toolkit. Currently, Wormhole is actively collaborating with application and blockchain developers, as well as issuers of cross-chain tokens, to increase the number of supported applications, expand the scope of cross-chain or multi-chain tokens, and initiate community governance to jointly advance the cross-chain ecosystem—a path we intend to follow over the next five to ten years.
ChainCatcher: Last November, Wormhole raised $225 million at a $2.5 billion valuation. What are the plans following this funding round? Also, what considerations led the team behind Wormhole to establish Wormhole Labs?
Dan Reecer: Engineering and product development remain at the heart of Wormhole. As the Wormhole ecosystem has grown, several collaborative teams have naturally emerged. Today, Wormhole’s core consists of four main pillars: the Foundation, Wormhole Labs, X Labs, and Asymmetric Research—an independent team focused on security.
On the developer front, Wormhole has offered grants at hackathons such as those in Denver and on Ethereum, and will continue participating in similar events to strengthen the developer ecosystem. Additionally, Wormhole is focused on recruiting top-tier talent.
ChainCatcher: Wormhole has launched a cross-chain ecosystem fund and the XGrant funding program. What are the specific criteria for selecting projects to fund? Do you plan to increase funding amounts in the future to support more promising projects?
Dan Reecer: X Grants are specifically designed for open-source projects within the Wormhole ecosystem. Relevant funding criteria are posted on our official website, and self-applications are reviewed and evaluated 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 broader cross-chain ecosystem—teams that have tightly integrated with Wormhole from day one.
Furthermore, the Wormhole Base Camp accelerator program, operated by Outlier Ventures and funded by Borderless Capital, focuses on supporting early-stage Web3 founders. Currently, five startups have been selected and will each receive a $200,000 investment from Borderless Capital.
Wormhole remains deeply committed to supporting the growth of the entire cross-chain ecosystem. Whether we will scale up funding will depend on further research and preparation.
ChainCatcher: With Bitcoin recently hitting new highs and overall crypto market sentiment rising, will this momentum lead Wormhole to accelerate certain project developments?
Dan Reecer: Market fluctuations haven’t changed Wormhole’s direction. We’ve been developing for over three years and have weathered multiple market cycles. Wormhole stays focused on its goals—launching new products and improving existing ones.
While market cycles may stir noise on social media, Wormhole remains steadfast in its mission and vision.
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