Ethena, Securitize Tap Arbitrum and Celestia for Converge Blockchain, Target Q2 Launch
The post Ethena, Securitize Tap Arbitrum and Celestia for Converge Blockchain, Target Q2 Launch appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Ethena and tokenization firm Securitize said they will use part of Arbitrum’s tech and data availability network Celestia for their real-world asset focused, Ethereum-compatible blockchain, aiming to launch mainnet in the second quarter of this year. The Converge chain is setting out to have fast blocktimes, allowing users to pay gas fees through Ethena’s USDe and USDtb, while creating security and guardrails via its Converge Validator Network, the two protocols behind the project explained in a tech update shared with CoinDesk. “The idea is that we go on a testnet very soon, in the next few weeks, because we’ve already been working on this for a while,” Carlos Domingo, co-founder and CEO of Securitize, said in an exclusive interview with CoinDesk. “Then, the mainnet: the goal is to do it before the end of Q2.” The exact timing of the public rollout also depends on third-party integrations such as Anchorage for custody support, Fireblocks for key management and other DeFi apps the project partnered with, Domingo added. Connecting RWA and DeFi Converge, unveiled last month, aims to connect the rapidly growing tokenized real-world assets (RWA) sector with the DeFi space, building on existing ecosystems around Ethena and Securitize and their multi billion dollar worth of assets. Ethena has quickly become a DeFi powerhouse, spearheading the yield-bearing stablecoin trend with its $5 billion “synthetic dollar” token USDe. Meanwhile, Securitize issues nearly $4 billion in tokenized assets by traditional finance giants like Apollo and Hamilton Lane and BlackRock’s blockchain-based money market fund token BUIDL. The latter is also the key backing asset of Ethena’s $1.4 billion USDtb stablecoin. “Converge’s ambitious vision of onboarding tens of billions of institutional capital on-chain requires providing users with high performance and elevated security guarantees,” Guy Young, founder of development firm Ethena Labs,…
