Why Multichain Collaboration Is Critical To The Future Of Web3

The proliferation of various blockchain ecosystems has brought a boom to the overall ecosystem.  Each chain has unique characteristics that come with its own advantages.

Furthermore, different kinds of distributed ledgers are all required in order to change different industries - finance, publishing, media, healthcare, cybersecurity, education, music, gaming, etc.

Sadly, the history of blockchain evolution has not been built on the principles of collaboration and unity, but division and conflict.

The Beginning Of Web3

The Bitcoin genesis block was mined in 2009 with the following message: “The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks”. Its use case was clear, as a substitute for a clearly corrupted dollar printing system where bailouts were granted to institutions but never people. At its core, bitcoin was a people’s currency.

In the years to follow, bitcoin suffered a lot of criticism from various actors. There were claims that it was destroying the environment, an incredibly misleading claim when all the information is considered. The coins that followed tried to distinguish themselves with speed and efficiency, but frequently abandoned the principles of democratic governance, Ripple and EOS being prime examples.

It was a rocky start, but Bitcoin did not go anywhere; it grew and developed despite mainstream attacks, paving the path for further cryptocurrencies to be built, which would then be used to develop newer technologies like NFTs, smart contracts, and web3 technologies.

Conflict In The Crypto Community

The decade from 2010 - 2020 was one of frantic social media activity, claims, accusations, and general discord. Craig Wright is known to be quite a vocal aggressor of Bitcoin, claiming to be Satoshi Nakamoto and promoting a hard fork resulting in Bitcoin SV. Bitcoin was also previously split into Bitcoin Cash. These splits/hard forks have been damaging as they fragment users and developers.

Social media was used largely as a tool for bashing other projects, creating elaborate crypto scams, and soaring coin prices, for selfish gain. John McAffee, now deceased, frequently made a number of controversial and contradictory statements about the ecosystem. Tweets from Elon Musk would regularly send the price of DOGE coin through the roof.

There were also a number of individuals who were more collaborative, notably Vitalik Buterin of Ethereum and Cardano CEO Charles Hoskinson. But the general theme was conflict, competition, doubt, and distrust.

All things considered, the initial decade of cryptocurrency was quite conflicted. Thankfully, we are now at a point where there is simply no need to differentiate and compete. It’s set to become the decade of interoperability with disparate chains working together.

Integrating Different Blockchains

It’s a shame that there has been so much division in the Web3 community, when the core ethos should promote collaboration and unity. It also makes little sense; we are building a completely new paradigm and creating new markets, so there is no real competition. The irony is that the pie would get even bigger if chains and development teams could grow together instead of attacking one another.

Interoperability between blockchains is a sorely needed function and is gradually becoming possible as people come around to the idea of mutual collaboration. There really is no shortage to speak of. But there is a shortage of infrastructure providers that are truly multichain and decentralized. Ankr is one of them.

Ankr is the foremost RPC provider that allows developers to send requests to over 15 blockchains - Solana, Fantom, Ethereum, NEAR, Celo, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Polygon, BSC, IoTeX, Syscoin, Gnosis, Moonbeam, Harmony, and Nervos. It is the fastest-growing Web3 infrastructure provider and the main infrastructure partner of Binance.

Ankr also provides node deployment along with unlimited requests for members of the Premium Plan. It is the perfect environment for Web3 development and it’s highly significant that their stated use case is to bring chains together and adopt a collaborative ethos. It intends to create an environment for a “holistic societal movement” as a “crypto agnostic platform”.

Multichain Has Significant Advantages

A lot has already been achieved with single blockchains - imagine what is going to happen if they have a common framework for development with access to multiple chains, through a low-cost node provider? When using a multichain provider, you are never bound to a single chain. As more APIs are released, it will increase collaboration for seamless blockchain development and deployment.

It will in many ways be the opposite of what we witnessed during the early days of cryptocurrency. Engineers need to work together and also be able to see the strengths and weaknesses of different blockchain networks.

Developers can use chains that suit their specific needs without letting personal biases and opinions get the better of them. This has been quite a feature of the former cryptocurrency world that has not been helpful to Web3 progression.

Why The Future Of Web3 Has To Be Multichain

Interoperability between blockchains is an absolute necessity. For all the benefits of Ethereum, it suffers from fees that are so high that the network is practically unusable.

And no chain is so good that it can stand out on its own for all possible use cases. Resources and expertise need to be shared so that the most appropriate chain is used.

There is no single chain for the future and no single cryptocurrency. There will be many chains, many cryptocurrencies, and interoperability for all.