In March, Axelar announced the Axelerator Grant Challenge, a cross-chain grant program seeking developers to build the next generation of dApps, which we believe will be cross-chain from the ground up.

One month later, we’ve closed the first phase of the Axelar cross-chain grant program with 18 participants in the inaugural cohort. Out of 90 submissions that came in, it was difficult to make a choice, and we ended up exceeding our initial limit of 15 participants.

We’re so impressed with the quality of the participants in this first phase that we’ve decided to extend the grant program on a rolling basis. That means we’ll continue to accept applications here.

A cross-chain grant for the Web3 super app

The Web3 super app is a concept developed by thought leaders in our community. A super app is one that enables its users to do almost anything, without leaving the app. The best example today is WeChat Pay, which lets users, say, chat with friends about plans to see a movie, browse schedules, buy tickets, make dinner reservations, and order a cab, all from within the app.

In a Web2 world, that requires massive horizontal integration – or partnerships, like the one between Apple and Alphabet to put Google Search on the iPhone. Antitrust regulatory considerations and multibillion-dollar payments are part of the game.

In Web3, access to functions and assets is permissionless. Already, it’s possible to compose functions and liquidity within ecosystems. At Axelar, we believe it should be possible across all ecosystems, putting the breadth of the decentralized web at the fingertips of users and developers. We believe in a Web3 without silos.

That’s why Axelar is delivering secure cross-chain communication infrastructure. We are enabling developers to build a super app without partnerships or vertical integration. Using Axelar and supported by our cross-chain grant program, developers are building in the ecosystem that best suits their use case, composing liquidity and functions from any other ecosystem in Web3.

We make this possible with a set of functions we call General Message Passing. You can read a high-level description of it here, or get started building with it using our docs.

The developers building in the 1st phase of Axelar’s cross-chain grant

We’re not going to dox our first cohort of cross-chain grant recipients (some are pretty stealthy about what exactly they’re building), but the kinds of applications they’re building are examples, showing what’s possible in the next generation of Web3. For the broader group of devs looking beyond the limits of a single ecosystem, it’s an inspiring list.

• Cross-chain lending using NFTs as collateral.
• Cross-chain dex aggregators.
• Cross-chain NFT marketplaces.
• Multichain yield aggregators and optimizers.
• Bridge aggregators.
• Multichain wallets with DeFi features.
• Multichain privacy services.
• Multichain decentralized guilds for play-to-earn.
• Cross-chain fan communities for artists.
• Cross-chain escrow services.
• Cross-chain NFT collections.
• Natively cross-chain stablecoins.

To see one example, live in the wild, check out our AMA with the developers of Axelarsea, a cross-chain NFT marketplace that is part of Axelar’s cross-chain grant program.

And, be sure to join our Discord, where you can engage with other developers building cross-chain dApps and stay on top of Axelar events and announcements as they happen.

Space station image credit.