Thorchain: Decentralized Liquidity Network

The Interview - Crypto ·
Featuring Chad Barraford and Sebastian Moonjava

Published on: April 23rd, 2021 • Duration: 55 minutes

Chad Barraford, technical lead at Thorchain, joins Sebastian Moonjava, Real Vision associate crypto editor, to discuss Thorchain, Cosmos, cross-chain swaps and the Rune token. Barraford explains that Cosmos makes it easier to build your own sovereign blockchain with its own validator set that empowers developers to make different types of interesting applications. Similar to Bitcoin from a scripting perspective, Barraford states that Ethereum has a lot of limitations to it, and while he feels that Ethereum has more flexibility than Bitcoin, Cosmos takes it even further. Currently, those who hold digital assets can transfer them only between centralized entities like Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken, which runs against Barraford’s perspective of the ethos of crypto. Barraford lays out how Thorchain, with its use of Cosmos and the Rune token, tackles this issue head-on, accomplishing something no other chain has been able to achieve. He highlights how the Rune token provides security to the network by ensuring that all of the digital assets being held there cannot be stolen through disincentivizing attempts. Filmed on April 15, 2021.

Key Learnings: While there are many great projects being built on Bitcoin, Barraford believes that there is no project contributing more to Bitcoin and its ethos than Thorchain. As Thorchain is a swapping protocol, it may be viewed initially as a competitor to Uniswap. However, Barraford views Thorchain as a competitor to centralized exchanges. Barraford believes these exchanges are monopolizing asset transfers between isolated chains. Thorchain, on the other hand, is developing a highway between these chains that is secure and completely decentralized.