Celebrating 2 Years of the Rainbow Bridge!

It's hard to believe that it's already been two years since the Rainbow Bridge was launched! During this time, we have seen the Rainbow Bridge become a vital tool for anyone looking to make trustless and permissionless transactions between NEAR, Ethereum, and Aurora. Throughout 2022 the Aurora Labs team has continued to work hard to ensure that the Rainbow Bridge remains not only a safe option but the best option for seamlessly moving assets between platforms.

On this second anniversary, we would like to share a recap of three key accomplishments that have made the Rainbow Bridge even better for its users during 2022 and get you excited about where these developments will take us next!

Top Highlights

The Ethereum Merge

In September 2022, the Ethereum network changed its consensus from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake in what is known as “The Merge”. As the Rainbow Bridge relies on the blockchains’ light clients for its trustless operation, it meant that our light client would need to start verifying PoS consensus instead of PoW. For this purpose, we needed to implement a new version of the light client and properly prepare for an upgrade. During this time, the Rainbow Bridge team put in place a post-Merge plan of action to ensure a seamless and secure transition period for the users of Aurora’s products and their funds. The Bridge was paused during the migration stage and then resumed operation, ensuring the security of users' funds and that the light client now follows Ethereum's Proof-of-Stake consensus.

The NEAR Token Connector

Also in September 2022, the NEAR native connector was deployed on the Rainbow Bridge allowing native NEP-141 tokens to be bridged to Ethereum.The deployment of the NEAR native connector market a significant milestone for interoperability between Ethereum and NEAR, expanding the use cases for NEAR tokens and increasing the accessibility of the Ethereum ecosystem to NEAR users.

Fast Transfers Are Coming!

As of January 2023, the Rainbow Bridge team has introduced a new feature called Fast Transfers in its beta version. This feature will significantly reduce the time required for transferring assets from NEAR to Ethereum. Currently, Fast Transfers are only available for white-listed addresses, but it will become accessible to the general public in the upcoming months.

Rainbow Bridge’s Transactions

In the past year, the Rainbow Bridge registered 66659 transactions, with a monthly average of 5555 and a daily average of 183 transactions. The total value of assets bridged through the Rainbow Bridge was over $ 5,100,000,000 ($5.1 billion)! Since its launch in 2021, the Rainbow Bridge has performed more than 144000 transactions and over $7.7 billions were transferred.

NB: The information given is from March 15th, 2022 to March 14th, 2023 and the data provided includes both transactions from Ethereum to NEAR/Aurora and from NEAR/Aurora to Ethereum.

Top Bridged Assets

USDC - $2.3B
USDT - $1.68B
Ether - $648M
WBTC - $302M
DAI - $101M
AURORA - $51M
PAD - $8.3M
FLUX - $6.3M
OCT - $6.2M
1. DODO - $5.1M

Rainbow Bridge’s Users

Over the past year, we have gathered data on user activity and engagement, and the results might surprise you! Let’s take a closer look at our top countries and languages.

Top 10 Countries

United States
Russia
Indonesia
Vietnam
Ukraine
India
China
Japan
United Kingdom
Hong Kong

Top 10 Languages

English
Russian
Chinese
Indonesian
Vietnamese
Turkish
Spanish
Japanese
French
Korean

Compared to last year, the United States remains on top of the list and two new countries enter the chart—Ukraine, and India! When it comes to languages, there were only minor shifts in positions, with Russian taking the place of Chinese as the second most popular language.

That concludes our review of the second-year anniversary of the Rainbow Bridge. We appreciate your support and hope to connect with you soon on our social media channels. To stay updated with our latest news and join our community, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Medium, Discord, and Telegram. Thank you, and we'll see you there!

About Aurora

Powered by its high-performance EVM, and fully trustless Rainbow Bridge, Aurora combines an Ethereum compatible experience with the modern blockchain performance of NEAR Protocol. Aurora provides an an optimal environment for the creation of scalable, carbon-neutral, future-safe, and low-cost Web3 services, as well as the perfect tools to bring to life your Web3 initiatives. Try Aurora Cloud, our all-in-one cloud solution for enterprises, and get your Web3 journey started!