Anurag Arjun is the co-founder of Avail Project, a network designed to allow blockchains to communicate effectively, verify transactions, and share liquidity across chains in a secure and scalable manner.
In a recent interview with BeInCrypto during Consensus Hong Kong, Arjun explained that the future of the blockchain will be cross-chain. Consequently, an infrastructure that allows cross-chain liquidity will be vital for a seamless user experience.
Do you want to tell us a bit about where you’re at right now with Avail?
“We actually started as a project within Polygon back in 2020. We spun it out in 2023 and then we’ve been running ever since. So why we started building Avail in the first place was, around 2020, the whole roll-up-centric roadmap for Ethereum was getting formed, and we knew that roll-ups are increasingly the future of blockchain. One chain being able to handle population-scale transaction loads, we don’t think that is a reality.
I think we can see that with the recent Trump and Melania coins, where even the best of the current technology of Solana got congested. So the reality is that we are going to live in a multi-chain sort of environment.
So, the real reason why we started Avail in the first place was we wanted to enable the creation of roll-ups on multiple chains. What we want to really build is, of course, a multi-chain feature, but more seamlessly connected.
So essentially, that’s what our upcoming Nexus Upgrade focuses on, really enabling very seamless connectivity between roll-ups on Avail so that you don’t have to bootstrap liquidity on each chain. For example, you can borrow liquidity from existing sources on existing roll-ups.
What we, from a user perspective, want to enable is even if a user has funds on Solana or on Base, for example, they are still able to do a transaction on a new roll-up like Sophon or Lens, and so many more. So that’s really the intent.”
What are your plans for the Nexus Upgrade, specifically regarding the growth and adoption of the new technology?
“In general, today, if you see how app developers develop applications, they develop apps for one particular chain. So if you look at something like Aave, it’s deployed on 13 different chains. It’s the same code, same protocol, and everything is the same, but they have to deploy and maintain these different deployments because they don’t want to lose out on users of each of these chains.
Our plan is very simple. It enables app developers to deploy on only one chain but it has users from other chains access this seamlessly without bridging funds, for example. Of course, there’s a bridging happening, but it’s all abstracted. So that’s the experience that we want to give. I think it’s a very different experience a lot of app developers are increasingly interested in. They haven’t actually been accustomed to such experiences, so it’s something new for them.”
What do you think would be the biggest challenge for the expansion of this technology?
“Really, it’s all primarily technical challenges. Basically, the more change we want to get into this ecosystem, we have to prove them in some way; we have to prove the execution through different means. So it’s really a function of how provable that chain is, and how fast we are able to integrate that chain, for example.”
Regarding user growth, how significant are partnerships compared to user-focused strategies?
“Partnerships help. For example, we are partnered with Wormhole for our messaging stack. In general we work with a lot of chain abstraction players, we want to kind of get them all together.
Today, what happens is each chain has their own business development team or marketing team. Every chain does their own marketing, for example. Say there’s a new L-2 or L-1 coming. Everyone will try to do some liquidity mining, get funds, or get more apps on their chain, right?
So we want to change that by saying, don’t focus on bringing liquidity to your chain. You can do that, but if you see the recent launches, it’s becoming harder and harder to get liquidity.
So the first liquidity campaigns would garner maybe a billion dollars, for example. Now, if you see the new ones, it’s hardly $50 million. It’s getting more difficult with each new chain. And so the reality is that capital will be residing in a few chains, and then there will be a long tail.
A long tail has to focus on utility. We solve reducing the friction of funds going from this chain to this one. So even if users have funds on one chain, let’s say Base or Solana, if there’s a new chain that brings in new apps, for example, and if it requires funds, they don’t need to bridge. We are offering a very differentiated core service to actives and new chains.”
How do you plan to keep staying differentiated from potential competition?
“Basically, we’ve been building this low-level infrastructure for a long time. We are one of the only projects in the market that has implemented data sampling with validity proofs. The only other project that is attempting this is Ethereum, and it will take a little time for them to implement that.
So because we have this data sampling and we have this Nexus Upgrade, it’s a very strong mode, and once we build out this cluster of chains, it’s like critical mass essentially. And so once we have the critical mass of chains, it’s easier to retain newer chains and attract more chains, for example.”
Are there other obstacles to entry you see in terms of technological barriers?
“We are building two types of modes. One is technical modes, one is liquidity modes, that’s very important. So the strength of our mode will rely on, if there’s a new chain that is launching, how much liquidity can flow to that new chain via our product.
Essentially, once our product is complete, you can think of us as bringing liquidity service to these new chains. So if you are able to function, if you are able to provide that, I think it’s a very strong way.”
Is there anything else you’d like to discuss regarding the Nexus Upgrade or the company’s future?
“In general I think our Nexus Upgrade is something that we are very proud of. The first version is on devnet and the testnet is coming soon, so hopefully we land our first mainnet cross-chain transaction in Q3. We are very bullish on that. Apart from that, we have another upgrade on the DA layer, something called Availfusion, which will come in Q4. So overall, we’re trying to make this more multi-chain, more seamless, and more user friendly.”
You have a lot on the roadmap already. What can we expect, let’s say, a year from now?
“Our roadmap is pretty set. I think we are on the right path directionally, the industry is increasingly going multi-chain. So I think users are very confused with the kind of choices. The ideal end-user experience we want to get is that the user logs into an app and doesn’t know what networks they are on.
If they want to do a transaction on, let’s say, Solana, for example, even though they don’t have gas fees on Solana, but maybe they have funds on some other chain, they should be able to use them. That’s what we want to do. So we are working to make this thing more of a reality so that for anyone who enters into Web3, we can become the gateway.”
How do fees factor into the multichain flow?
“Fees are dependent upon the independent blockchain. So we, of course, maintain the same. What we kind of abstract over a little bit is that you don’t necessarily need to have that particular token for paying gas. You can pay gas fees in, let’s say ETH or USDT or SOL, for example.”
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