This platform-wide upgrade brings new transfer routes including intents-based transfers, native-to-native swaps, faster transactions from slower-finality chains like Ethereum, and a better overall user experience to the Wormhole platform and Wormhole-powered multichain apps. The Wormhole Era3 Upgrade builds on the core elements of cross-chain interoperability that Wormhole has been refining since it began in 2020 when it debuted as the first-ever token bridge between Ethereum and Solana. Era2 brought the industry’s first general message passing protocol, laying the groundwork for seamless asset transfers to 30+ blockchains and the delivery of over one billion secure cross-chain messages.

Wormhole Era3 is the next step toward connecting all of crypto and bringing traditional finance onchain.

Era3 Update - Core Components

Wormhole Era3 is the Era of Experience, introducing significant UX/UI improvements and a suite of new products, including intents-based transfers, more options for native token swaps, and major enhancements to Wormhole Connect, the TypScript SDK, and Portal Bridge — the primary token transfer protocol built on Wormhole. Wormhole Era3 is already powering industry-leading apps like Phantom, Jupiter, Backpack, Safe, Squads, and PancakeSwap. Here's what's under the hood.

1. Composable Intents

One of the key pillars of the Era3 upgrade is the launch of Composable Intents. This is a brand new intents-based system that will allow extremely fast and cheap cross-chain transfers, any-to-any asset swaps, and composability for apps to build on top of the system.

Wormhole’s Composable Intents allow developers to seamlessly chain together multiple cross-chain actions in a single, unified transaction. This means they can facilitate complex operations such as:

• Cross-chain asset swaps combined with actions like depositing into DeFi protocols
• "Zap" transactions, where assets are swapped and deposited in a single flow
• Building applications that trigger actions on different blockchains simultaneously
• Enabling users to transfer, swap, and interact with various protocols without needing multiple manual steps

This composability simplifies user experiences and opens up new possibilities for DeFi, gaming, and other multichain applications. Composable Intents will be live on Ethereum, Optimism, Arbitrum, Base, Avalanche, Polygon and Solana, with more chains coming very soon.

Composable Intents consists of 2 separate architectures that operate in tandem and cater to users, builders and solvers alike:

• Liquidity Layer - unique and novel approach to intents-based transfers, launching with a liquidity layer powered by Solana.
• Swift - the Wormhole SDK has integrated Mayan’s contemporary intents transfer model.

Both protocols are able to be composed upon by builders, and can be utilized by users for all of their cross-chain swap and bridging needs - with no compromises on security, speed or cost.

2. Wormhole Institutional

Addressing growing institutional demand for interoperable blockchain solutions in capital markets use cases, Wormhole serves several major institutional integrations in various capacities. For example, Securitize, the global leader in real-world asset tokenization who serves clients like BlackRock and KKR, has recently selected Wormhole as its official interoperability provider for all current and future tokenized assets on its platform, ensuring tokenized assets can flow freely across the entire crypto ecosystem.

Wormhole has also been selected for integration with institutions like Google Cloud and AMD to bolster the Wormhole platform’s technology offering for enterprises globally. Central to Wormhole Institutional is the native token transfers (NTT) framework that cuts liquidity fragmentation by preserving the intrinsic properties of tokens on different chains—eliminating the need for projects to wrap assets. NTT serves as a long-term solution to ensure native properties aren’t altered when a token is transferred to a given chain while also maintaining the flexibility for token issuers to preserve contract ownership or integrate other verification systems. Building with NTT, financial institutions can improve operations by adding transparency, increase liquidity, experience 24/7 market access, and improve access.

3. Major Portal Upgrade

Portal, the primary token transfer app built on Wormhole, is getting a major user experience upgrade — including intents-based transfers, NTT (native token transfers), and fast transfers for fast guaranteed finality. If you've used Portal before, you'll instantly feel the impact of the upgrades in terms of speed, cost, and ease of use.

4. Wormhole Connect Upgrade

Connect aggregates the Wormhole suite of products under one roof as a simple plug-in that can be integrated into multichain apps with just 3 lines of code. Developers and users will experience:

• UI/UX refresh focused on simplicity and usability
• All routes available Wormhole routes on 30+ chains
• An intuitive transfer flow
• Clear distinction between native and wrapped asset transfers
• Enhanced error handling
• Advanced transfer progress tracking

5. Wormhole TypeScript SDK Upgrade

The TypeScript SDK received a ground-up rewrite focused on DevEx and ease of use for building complex UIs. Wormhole Connect, Wormhole CLI, Wormhole dashboard, and Backpack's cross-chain swaps are built using this new SDK.

Wormhole Era4, Era5, Era6, and beyond

Wormhole Era3 is a significant milestone, but it's just the next step toward a unified, decentralized economy. As Wormhole enters Era4, Era5, Era6, and beyond, it’s on a path to become the invisible backbone of interoperability. From driving institutional adoption and continuously evolving blockchain transactions to transcending traditional technological boundaries, the Wormhole contributors have undertaken an ambitious task — enabling a frictionless, decentralized, and interoperable web. The future of blockchain interoperability is multichain, powered by Wormhole.

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About Wormhole

Wormhole is the leading interoperability platform that powers multichain applications and bridges at scale. Wormhole provides developers access to liquidity and users on over 30 of the leading blockchain networks, enabling use cases that span DeFi, NFTs, governance, and more.

The wider Wormhole network is trusted and used by teams like Circle and Uniswap. To date, the platform has facilitated the transfer of over 40 billion dollars through over 1 billion cross-chain messages. To learn more about Wormhole, follow on Twitter, join the Discord, or read the blog.