Overview of 7 Innovative Use Cases Built on Wormhole

01 Cross-Chain Lending Platform

Enables users to deposit assets as collateral on Chain A and borrow assets on Chain B.

Just like any lending protocol (also known as Money Market) provides liquidity for one asset by depositing another, this will serve as a "universal liquidity protocol." This will allow users to provide native assets on the source chain and borrow native assets on the target chain without interacting with cross-chain bridges or dealing with wrapped assets.

For example, a user has SOL on Solana and wants to explore Sui. They need SUI and USDC to use Sui dApps. Currently, they have to:

Multiple swaps ------ The user sells their SOL for USDC, bridges to Sui via Portal Bridge, and then swaps USDCso (the Solana version of USDC) for USDC and SUI on Sui. This leads to exposure loss on SOL and an additional 3-4 steps.
Multiple borrow/lend ------ Collateralize SOL on a lending protocol (like Solend) on Solana, borrow USDC, bridge USDC to Sui, swap it for other assets supported by lending protocols, and then collateralize and borrow USDC on a lending protocol on Sui (like Navi).
To simplify this process, a cross-chain lending platform would allow them to deposit SOL on Solana and borrow SUI and USDC on Sui based on the collateral ratio. This enables them to leverage assets across chains!

Wormhole also provides a reference implementation for lending on EVM chains (https://github.com/wormhole-foundation/example-wormhole-lending). One of the key projects based on this theme is Pike Finance, which builds on Wormhole's cross-chain data messaging and Circle CCTP, check them out for inspiration. Synonym is another project built on Wormhole.

02 Cross-Chain Yield Aggregator

Enables users to discover the best yields across multiple chains and invest in universal assets like USDC or ETH from their preferred chain.

Currently, cross-chain yield earning is a cumbersome and fragmented process ------ involving searching, analyzing, bridging, swapping, depositing, claiming, and withdrawing, which is both labor-intensive and complex. There is a clear opportunity to simplify the entire process into a powerful yield interface where users can discover, access, and manage their yields. This provides:

Users ------ Access to cross-chain yield vaults (Yield Vaults) with assets like USDC through a single transaction.
Protocols ------ Instant distribution of their vaults.
This would involve two main modules:

Messaging ------ For cross-chain yield transfer, utilizing Wormhole's cross-chain reading (Wormhole Queries) to obtain deposit and withdrawal data, as well as Wormhole's cross-chain messaging.
Liquidity ------ To facilitate user funds moving from one chain to another, a bridging aggregator or Wormhole's liquidity solutions could be employed.
The protocol flow would look like this: User deposits USDC on Solana → USDC is bridged to Arbitrum and deposited in Pendle → User receives a tokenized yield position on Solana.

Another similar idea exploring this direction is cross-chain staking or cross-chain restaking, where people can stake their ETH (or wrapped ETH, i.e., WETH) or wrapped SOL from any chain.

03 Intent-Based Cross-Chain DEX

Allows users to bridge native assets from Chain A to Chain B using intents.

Intents are one of the hottest topics in DEX, popularized by UniswapX, where users can express intents like "swap X on Chain A for Y on Chain B," and anyone can execute it in any way. The current Portal Bridge does not provide the best user experience, as users need to wrap, unwrap, and claim assets on the target chain, leading to gas inefficiencies.

A cross-chain liquidity protocol could be built on top of Wormhole Messaging, finding liquidity in DEXs on connected chains or using off-chain solvers (like market makers), allowing users to initiate swaps with a single click. While liquidity will be sourced from different places, the cross-chain messages for receiving and depositing assets will be transmitted via Wormhole, ensuring high security.

Mayan Finance is a similar protocol built on Wormhole that uses DEX aggregators like Jupiter for auctions and settles on Solana. Another good example is Hashflow, built on Wormhole.

Exploring cross-chain order books is another interesting direction. This involves using Wormhole to synchronize on-chain order books across different chains.

04 Cross-Chain Token or Stablecoin Launchpad

Enables users to issue/launch full-chain tokens across multiple chains, such as stablecoins and memecoins.

For example, people can issue stablecoins backed by tokenized government bonds or other assets on chains like Solana. Then, with the help of Wormhole assets, issue a wrapped version on over 20 other chains, ensuring interoperability with the main chain through a hub and spoke model.

To learn more about how to issue stablecoins across multiple chains using Wormhole, check out this blog (https://yashhsm.medium.com/issuing-multi-chain-stablecoins-using-wormhole-a-case-study-489948cb71b9).

05 Cross-Chain NFT

Enables users to mint full-chain universal NFTs or migrate NFTs from one chain to another.

Cross-chain NFT checkout: Suppose there is a Mad Lads minting event that requires users to bridge SOL to Solana and then mint. What if users had the option to mint on any chain (using other assets) without bridging?
Facilitating NFT migration, such as Degods migrating from Solana to Ethereum, y00ts migrating from Solana to Polygon, etc.
Check out Mintly and Merkly, which have implemented NFT minting and bridging using Wormhole for reference and inspiration.

Mintly: https://www.mintly.lol/wormhole/nft-mint
Merkly: https://minter.merkly.com/wormhole

06 Existing dApp Integration

For existing applications in categories like DeFi or NFTs, you can integrate Wormhole for various use cases, such as:

Governance: Cross-chain governance, like Uniswap using Wormhole for cross-chain governance.
Wormhole Connect: Integrating Wormhole Connect (similar to a Stripe-like cross-chain bridging widget) into dApp frontends like Cetus.
On/Off-ramps: Using Wormhole to facilitate conversions between fiat and cryptocurrency, allowing users to deposit on any Wormhole-supported chain.
Cross-Chain DeFi: DeFi protocols for deeper integration to achieve cross-chain capabilities and increase their Total Addressable Market (TAM). For example, Marginfi could also allow users to deposit collateral from Arbitrum. Another great example is a cross-chain perpetual contract DEX using Wormhole Queries.

Building games with xAssets: Treating game assets like NFTs or tokens as xAssets, i.e., wrapping assets across multiple chains.
Cross-Chain Payment Applications: Similar to Sphere's Wormhole integration, allowing anyone to pay from any chain and providing users with a unified payment experience.

07 Additional Ideas: Tool Development

If you want to build some cool tools on top of Wormhole, here are some ideas:

Ecosystem-specific: Just like Solana Bridge enables seamless bridging between Solana with the best user experience, build more ecosystem-specific frontends for chains like Sui, Sei, Cosmos, etc., to attract target user groups and enhance SEO discovery.
Cross-Chain Deposit Entry: For games on Solana, developers can provide deposit addresses for their users for each chain. For example, a user could deposit USDC from Avalanche, which would automatically deposit into the game's Solana contract.
Automate cross-chain operations using scheduler applications: Automated contracts with triggers involving multiple chains. For example, a trigger condition could be if the ETH price drops below $1500, use USDC stored in a custodial contract on ETH to buy 10 SOL at market price on Openbook (Solana's order book DEX), valid until May 21, 2024.
Create cross-chain identities using chain-agnostic global passports: Similar to a global passport, identity data like KYC, reputation scores, transaction history, and credit scores should be interoperable and usable across all chains. Additionally, integrating naming systems would be beneficial; imagine being able to log in using ENS on Solana!