Today, 3 April 2025, marks the one-year anniversary of the launch of Wormhole’s W token, and with it, the continued path towards full decentralization of the protocol. W launched after over three years of protocol development and adoption. By the time of launch, Wormhole had already processed over $40 billion in asset transfer volume and facilitated over 1 billion messages. Since the launch of W, the Wormhole contributors have accelerated product development, grown the protocol’s lead in most interoperability data categories ($59B in all-time volume enabled, #1 in the industry), and closed some of the highest-value institutional integrations in the industry, including BlackRock, Apollo, and Securitize.
W launched as a natively multichain token powered by Wormhole and today is delegated and staked in governance across five major networks (Ethereum, Base, Solana, Arbitrum, and Optimism), with the launch of Wormhole Governance imminent. Wormhole Contributors are proud of what has been accomplished thus far, and are incredibly excited for what still lies ahead.
The future market opportunity for Wormhole is massive. Governments, institutions, sovereign wealth funds, corporations, and companies building AI agents are all launching onchain products. Hundreds of public and private chains are now operational, with thousands of new chains and tokenized assets coming onchain in the very near future. Accessing this entire ecosystem of chains and assets is table stakes for any team launching onchain products. As the lines between traditional and crypto rails blur, Wormhole is uniquely positioned to serve these teams and capture the majority of value and data transfer that will flow throughout financial markets. Wormhole is the infrastructure connecting every person, institution, app, asset, AI agent, and network, all of which have the potential to monetize and accrue value back to W stakers.
Below is a quick summary of what’s next for the future of the Wormhole platform and the W token powering this whole ecosystem, along with a summary of Wormhole’s growth trajectory and accomplishments over the past year:
Wormhole’s Future: Platform Monetization, Product Roadmap, and the next 10x
The next 10x and decades ahead for Wormhole
As mentioned in the start of the article, Wormhole is connecting the internet economy, and W is preparing to become the universal connectivity token powering this future. The goal of Wormhole Contributors is to 10x the message and asset transfer volume that Wormhole facilitates over the next 1-2 years.
To accomplish this, Wormhole Contributors will focus on improving core user-facing products such as Portal, advancing Wormhole’s competitive edge in smart contract products such as NTT, Settlement, and Queries, and continuing to grow the number of institutional-grade assets that choose to leverage the unique product and security advantages that Wormhole offers. On that note, below is a refresher of the Era4 phase of the product roadmap.
Wormhole Platform Monetization, Revenue, and Fee Switches
Wormhole Research Contributors have explored various monetization strategies, fee-switch mechanisms, and revenue models for W across key components of the Wormhole platform, which have the ability to generate rewards that can be redirected to W holders actively staking and participating in governance. Wormhole Contributors are ready to start moving from ideation to implementation, with the first of several major updates happening in the coming months.
Product Roadmap
Wormhole has undergone significant upgrades over three distinct product eras since it first launched in 2020.
In Era1 (2020-2021), Wormhole introduced the first-ever token bridge between Solana and Ethereum. This MVP launch included a UI and an initial Guardian set of 19 members.
In Era2 (2021-2024), Wormhole became a platform for developers by expanding its suite of products. Building upon the success of the token bridge, Wormhole launched arbitrary message passing to facilitate transferring data across 30+ blockchains, Native Token Transfers, Wormhole Connect, and Portal. The Guardian set matured by growing to include 19 top-tier validator companies, and major blue-chip crypto protocols such as Uniswap, Pyth, and Lido used Wormhole products to power use-cases such as governance, oracles, and asset transfers.
In Era3 (announced during Solana Breakpoint in September 2024), Wormhole released major UX upgrades via features such as native swaps, fast transfers, a revamped SDK, and a redesign of Portal, Wormhole Connect, and Wormholescan. Wormhole Contributors also launched Wormhole for Institutions, which is a customized, high-touch product offering to global enterprises and financial institutions. Wormhole for Institutions has since been adopted by Securitize, BlackRock, and Apollo, with several more institutional partnerships coming soon.
Era4, the next phase of Wormhole’s product roadmap, is set to further decentralize the protocol via multichain governance, refresh the Portal brand, and unify the various intents protocols built on top of Wormhole. Era4 includes the following exciting upgrades:
- MultiGov: The Industry’s First Multichain Governance Solution — MultiGov is the first ever multichain governance system that will be available to DAOs on Ethereum mainnet, EVM L2s, and Solana. MultiGov enables token holders to create, vote on, and execute governance proposals on any supported chain. Wormhole Contributors have built MultiGov in partnership with Tally and Scopelift – two of the leading governance teams in the industry, and are excited to partner with DAOs as the system begins rolling out soon.
- Wormhole Governance Launch — Wormhole Governance, powered by MultiGov, is launching imminently. Wormhole Contributors are excited to empower W token holders with the abilities to propose specific changes and vote on decisions that will impact the platform, community, and ecosystem.
- Wormhole Settlement Launch ✅ — Wormhole Settlement, launched in February 2025, introduced a next-generation suite of intents protocols to enable fast multichain transfers for institutional-scale volume. Wormhole Settlement empowers developers to integrate fast cross-chain swaps into their apps with ease, ensuring a seamless user experience without compromising speed, security, or liquidity.
- Portal Upgrade and Brand Refresh — A major upgrade to the Portal user experience is coming alongside a refreshed visual identity. Wormhole Contributors are excited to make multichain swaps and transfers faster, cheaper, and more intuitive.
- Community Incentive Campaigns — Additional incentive programs will soon launch to reward W stakers, community members, and users of Wormhole ecosystem products.
The Past Year in Review
Key Ecosystem Development Wins
🏦 Established as the Default Institutional-Grade Interoperability Solution
Securitize: Securitize selected Wormhole as its exclusive interoperability provider to enable seamless multichain interoperability for all of its current and future tokenized funds. This partnership powers multichain capabilities for institutional-grade assets, including those from major players like BlackRock and Apollo, across networks like Ethereum, Solana, and others.
BlackRock: BlackRock’s $1.9 billion BUIDL fund selected Wormhole for interoperability across blockchains as it expanded investor access beyond Ethereum. This integration allows the fund’s tokenized assets to move natively across multiple chains to support its rapid growth trajectory.
Apollo: Apollo ($730 billion AUM) selected Wormhole to take its Apollo Diversified Credit Securitize Fund (ACRED) fund multichain to networks like Aptos, Avalanche, and Solana. The integration enables seamless and secure token transfers, improving access and network choice for onchain private credit investors.
Flow Traders: Publicly traded Flow Traders joined the Wormhole ecosystem to become a solver for Wormhole Settlement, contributing technology to power fast and cheap multichain swaps.
Google Cloud: Google Cloud joined Wormhole’s Guardian Network as a validator node, integrating its infrastructure to enhance the security and decentralization of Wormhole.
AMD: AMD partnered with Wormhole to provide its high-performance hardware along with ZK expertise to accelerate zero-knowledge proofs and to improve the trustlessness of the protocol. This partnership’s goal is to improve Wormhole’s security, scalability, and trust-minimization.
Borderless Wormhole Fund: Borderless Capital launched a $50 million fund to support apps built on Wormhole.
⚖️🪙 Stablecoins:
MakerDAO/Sky: Sky, formerly MakerDAO, integrated Wormhole’s NTT framework to launch its USDS stablecoin on Solana in September 2024, enabling seamless multichain transfers.
Agora: Agora partnered with Wormhole in October 2024 to leverage the NTT framework, uniting AUSD stablecoin liquidity across Ethereum, Avalanche, Sui, among others.
M^0: M^0 integrated Wormhole NTT in October 2024 to expand its $M stablecoin and all other stablecoins built on the M^0 stablecoin launchpad across chains such as Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Noble, adding native multichain interoperability between any M^0 stablecoin and fueling growth in issuance.
DeepBlue: DeepBlue’s $DBUSD adopted Wormhole’s NTT framework in October 2024 to enable multichain functionality for its stablecoin.
Transfero: Transfero, one of the leading stablecoin issuers in Latin America, selected Wormhole as its exclusive interoperability provider in November 2024, using NTT to power multichain functionality for its BRZ, ARZ, and CLZ stablecoins, unifying liquidity and scaling access in Latin America and the rest of the world.
Product
Era3 Produce Line Launch: Wormhole Foundation co-founders Dan Reecer and Robinson Burkey revealed the Wormhole Era3 line of products at Solana Breakpoint in September 2024. This launch rolled out features including:
- The announcement of Wormhole Settlement, in partnership with Mayan, to enable seamless, intent-based asset swaps and transfers across 30+ blockchains
- A streamlined UI/UX for Portal, Wormhole Connect, Wormholescan, and a revamped Wormhole SDK
- The launch of Wormhole for Institutions, a customized, white-glove offering for institutional-grade assets like tokenized funds and stablecoins who want tailored solutions that meet their security, compliance, and technical requirements
Network Data
- All-Time Messaging Volume (#1 in the industry): 1,094,108,376
- All-Time Transfer Volume Enabled (#1 in the industry): $58,946,586,582
Institutional Events
Tokenize.NYC: The Tokenize.NYC event, held on March 17, 2025 at The Times Center in New York, was a significant one-day conference organized by Wormhole and Securitize. It brought together leaders from traditional finance and blockchain industries to advance institutional blockchain adoption through education, networking, and partnership opportunities. The event focused on key topics such as the tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs), decentralized finance (DeFi), stablecoins, fund management, and the future of digital assets. It featured discussions on regulatory clarity, institutional adoption trends, and innovative blockchain solutions, with notable insights into how tokenized assets are reshaping finance by enhancing liquidity, transparency, and accessibility.
Prominent firms and teams represented at Tokenize.NYC included: BlackRock, Apollo, Securitize, SkyBridge Capital, Solana, Ethena, Aave, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley.
Closing Thoughts
Wormhole Contributors believe that Wormhole will become the connective fabric for the entire new internet economy, and are working relentlessly towards that vision. Just as airports, trains, and highways move people and products across the globe, Wormhole will enable the secure movement of value and data across all blockchains, applications, and asset classes.
Over the next 50 years, Wormhole is set to be the foundational infrastructure on which the internet of value is built, where real world assets, crypto-native assets, capital markets, and government systems interoperate freely and securely. As crypto matures from fragmented economic zones on blockchains into a unified internet economy, Wormhole, powered by W, will be the connective system enabling billions of transactions every day between institutions, users, and machines across every network, every population, in every part of the world.