Anchorage, a company that aims to help institutional investors with adopting digital assets, has teamed up with Tokensoft to bring wrapped layer-one crypto-assets to the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain.
Diogo Mónica, Co-Founder and President at Anchorage, explained that his organization will work with Tokensoft to offer a joint service that will allow wrapped layer-one cryptocurrency tokens to be launched on the Ethereum network, beginning with wrapped Zcash (wZEC).
Mónica noted in a blog post:
“Through the service, called Wrapped, Tokensoft will administer the technology layer of the wrapped digital asset on Ethereum, while all underlying assets will be held in the security of qualified custody on the Anchorage platform. We’re proud to partner with Tokensoft to give institutions a bridge between Ethereum and a growing list of layer one protocols.”
Mónica claims that there’s great value in bridging layer-one crypto protocols with Ethereum. In addition to streamlining integration with digital asset exchanges already integrated with Ethereum, wrapping layer-one protocols allows users to take advantage of Ethereum’s programmability, bringing additional liquidity into decentralized finance (DeFi). Wrapping these protocols also makes it easier to take part in the rapidly evolving ecosystem of decentralized applications (dApps) such as Compound, Maker, and Uniswap.
Mónica further explained that wrapping digital assets allows users to “continue to take advantage of the qualities that make a given protocol unique.” For example, in the case of wrapped Zcash (ZEC), as with the underlying Zcash, users “maintain the ability to utilize enhanced cryptographic tools to protect the privacy of their transactions, as well as selective disclosure features that allow users to share transaction details for compliance reasons,” Mónica noted.
He added:
“Wrapped is designed to service any digital asset, and will rely on the ERC-1404 standard, a standard Tokensoft designed to allow free asset transfer while ensuring compliance with applicable requirements.”
He also confirmed that, in the coming months, the service expects to wrap many other crypto tokens, with Avalanche, Handshake, and Celo currently “under consideration.” Anchorage and Tokensoft are “just getting started” with this partnership, Mónica claims. He also mentioned that both organizations aim to bring many other layer-one protocols to Ethereum in the future.