ShapeShift CEO Wants Eyes on THORChain’s Launch, Not Coinbase’s Listing

New native cross-chain decentralized exchange, THORChain, is gearing up to go live today.

While all eyes are on the direct listing of major crypto exchange Coinbase happening this week as well, ShapeShift CEO and crypto industry stalwart Erik Voorhees has stated that THORChain’s launch is a bigger event. 

THORChain DEX Launches On Tuesday

THORChain, a blockchain for decentralized crypto trading, is set to launch on Tuesday, April 13. The network is that it would allow native crypto assets to be traded on a DEX across unique blockchains without bridging technology or wrapping tokens.

In a tweet, Voorhees said THORChain’s launch should be referred to as the biggest event in crypto this week even over Coinbase listing because it would step up crypto to crypto trading. 

“THORChain has no bridges. It has no wrapping. It is native assets, swapped across chains in a decentralized way, for the first time ever,” Voorhees tweeted.

THORChain said it would host an online launch party on the social networking platform Clubhouse, where several crypto stakeholders would be in attendance. The clubhouse launch would include Vorhees and other ShapeShift executives, Multicoin Capital managing partner Tushar Jain and Delphi Digital co-founder Yan Liberman.

THORChain’s Uniqueness

Unlike DEXs like Bancor and Uniswap, THORChain enables the trading and swapping of crypto assets from completely different blockchains and networks.

It is based on Tendermint, the consensus protocol associated with the Cosmos ecosystem.

The first version of THORChain was started about three years ago but was later abandoned in 2018.

The native token of THORChain is known as RUNE. Every token in THORChain is matched with an equal amount in value of its RUNE token. The token then acts as collateral to facilitate trades.

The DEX will start by hosting pairings for Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Binance Coin before including other crypto assets in the future.

THORChain’s multi cross-chain network, Chaosnet, is where the magic happens. It allows assets to be swapped without relying on third-party intermediaries such as the custodians of wrapped versions of BTC.

Meanwhile, a native wallet called Asgard X would also be launched soon as the THORChain team develops it. The wallet will be built to interact directly with the Chaosnet allowing the tokens of unique blockchains to be held by a single wallet. This way, it can store coins from the networks.