Mach 2

Legacy cross-chain technologies were monolithic and inefficient, with the same team managing both liquidity and the off-chain transaction verification system. This centralized approach introduced significant security risks, as evidenced by pool-based bridge hacks resulting in over $2.8 billion in losses over the past five years. Additionally, they were slow and expensive, as blockchains are a technically hostile environment for effective order books.

Mach 1 (formerly known as Hourglass), attempted to solve this by modularizing the bridging stack, third-party messaging protocols to handle transaction verification, specifically Layer Zero. Although this was a tremendous improvement, it ultimately led to similar limitations. Cross-chain swaps were now constrained by the speed of chain-to-chain message passing. Facilitating the security and settlement of every transaction through this system presented clear technical limitations, preventing the scaling or improved performance past a certain threshold.

Through Mach 2, we solved this by adopting a solution to "break past the speed of messages" through our implementation of a novel optimistic, intents-based architecture. By leveraging optimistic intents, Mach 2 significantly reduces the speed and cost of transactions while retaining optimal security for users. This architecture minimizes the need for frequent messaging between chains, still utilizing Layer Zero as an extra layer of security to secure user funds and contest suspicious transactions.

This greatly reduces transaction speeds and operational costs, passing on benefits directly to users. Moreover, smart contract management of escrow ensures that users face no finality risk, with funds remaining untouched until the successful funding of the other side of the trade. Mach 2 is the scalable, efficient, and user-friendly solution for securing stablecoin and RWA markets across every chain.

What is a Cross-Chain Trade?

A cross-chain trade, allows a user to move an asset from one blockchain to a different asset on another blockchain. For Mach, all cross-chain trades are intent-based and executed as limit orders.