Flare (FLR) Platform Develops Bitcoin Bridge to Algorand, Receives Algorand Foundation Grant

Flare (FLR), a novel EVM-compatible platform designed to empower non-programmatic blockchains with the power of smart contracts, accomplished a new milestone in its collaboration with Algorand (ALGO).

Flare (FLR) receives Algorand Foundation Bridges SupaGrant

According to the joint official announcement shared by Algorand Foundation and Flare Network’s team, the two protocols partnered to advance the cross-blockchain compatibility of Algorand (ALGO).

? Very excited to announce:

We are building a #Bitcoin Bridge for @Algorand!?

✅ Safely delivering #Bitcoin to Algorand
✅ Engineering a $BTC FAsset
✅ Integrating consensus to enhance bridge security
✅ Receiving 7-figure Supagrant #Flare $FLRhttps://t.co/WU24tRe0KV

— Flare ☀️ (@FlareNetworks) April 26, 2022

Within this partnership, Flare Network is awarded the seven-digit “Bridges Supagrant” from Algorand Foundation. This grant will fuel the development of a decentralized bridge necessary to move the value between Algorand (ALGO) and Bitcoin (BTC).

The new bridge will ensure noncustodial interactions between Algorand and the first cryptocurrency. Moreover, Algorand and Bitcoin will join Flare’s ecosystem of assets that includes Dogecoin (DOGE), Stellar Lumens (XLM), Litecoin (LTC) and XRP.

To activate the bridge, Flare will leverage its two core technical mechanisms, i.e., the Flare Time Series Oracle (FTSO) and the State Connector.

FTSO will timely update data on Flare (FLR) network while the State Connector will prove off- and on-chain states by Flare’s smart contracts.

Growing ecosystem of interconnected L1s

Sean Rowan, CTO and co-founder of Flare, highlights that the mentioned bridge will not use outdated network bridging technologies in order to avoid the failures associated with existing bridges:

We have a huge amount of respect for the Algorand team, and are excited to be developing a secure and trustless bridge for the Algorand ecosystem. The simple fact is that existing approaches to bridging have time and again been proven unsatisfactory. Flare’s new approach is an entirely different way, built from the ground up rather than being based on existing bridging technology – and will bring a breakthrough in secure, decentralized interoperability between any and all chains.

Daniel Oon, head of DeFi at the Algorand Foundation, adds that integration between Bitcoin (BTC) and Algorand (ALGO) will advance the usage of digital gold in the global DeFi ecosystem:

We’re excited to partner with Flare and welcome them to the Algorand ecosystem. Our grant partnership with Flare will develop key DeFi infrastructure with a bridge to Bitcoin, opening up opportunities for further collaboration and innovation.  We look forward to our partnership bringing value to our respective communities.

Flare (FLR) engineers also stressed that the potentially new token bridge can facilitate data exchnage between Flare and every other Layer 1 protocol.