Across
The chain interoperability project LayerZero officially acquired the flagship liquidity application Stargate with a bid of US$110 million, writing a decisive chapter for blockchain infrastructure.
Community voting and bidding competition
This proposal garnered support from approximately 95% of STG holders last weekend, mobilizing over 15,000 addresses and 7.2 million STG, setting a new record for participation in Stargate governance. During the process, cross-chain competitor Wormhole offered a high bid of $120 million in cash and attempted to halt the vote. Axelar and Across also expressed interest in joining, but failed to change the outcome.
According to Cointelegraph , LayerZero will adjust the terms to distribute part of the agreement proceeds from the acquisition amount to stakers who locked up veSTG before August 10, and pay 50% of Stargate's revenue as compensation within six months, effectively resolving the valuation dispute and ultimately gaining community support to win.
Integration Effect and Future Focus
After the transaction is completed, STG will be redeemable indefinitely at a rate of 1 STG to 0.08634 ZRO, and the StargateDAO and STG staking mechanisms will cease to exist. After the six-month revenue sharing period, all revenue generated by Stargate will be used to repurchase ZRO from the market, further enhancing the value capture of a single asset.
For users, cross-chain transfers and liquidity pipelines remain operational, and new assets and chains will continue to be added; for the LayerZero team, the merger means synchronizing resource coordination and product development, upgrading Stargate from a "bridge" to a "value transfer interface."
More broadly, this integration has a demonstrable effect on DeFi infrastructure: decentralized protocols, facing the challenges of economies of scale and network effects, may move from competition to strategic alliances. The LayerZero x Stargate merger sets a new bar for the cross-chain market and kicks off the next round of interoperability competition.
Key timelines for the acquisition
On August 10, the LayerZero Foundation put forward a "full acquisition" proposal on the Stargate governance forum; 13 days later, the governance vote passed it, the speed of which was beyond market expectations.
LayerZero currently connects 138 chains, serves over 550 applications, and has accumulated over $120 billion in transfer volume. Stargate, on the other hand, supports real-time transfers of native assets between over 80 chains, processing over 55 million transactions and exceeding $70 billion in cumulative transfer volume. Previously operating as upstream and downstream platforms, the two have now merged, achieving vertical integration from protocols to applications.
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