Balanced connects to Optimism

Balanced is now available on Optimism, its 5th blockchain in the Ethereum ecosystem. Use it to swap ETH and USDC for crypto on other blockchains, transfer them cross-chain, and use ETH as collateral to borrow the bnUSD stablecoin.

Learn more about Balanced’s cross-chain DeFi offering, and how you can use the Optimism connection.

The cross-chain DeFi hub

Balanced is home to the bnUSD stablecoin and a decentralised exchange. Built on ICON with best-in-class design, it uses ICON’s cross-chain framework to connect to a diverse range of blockchains.

You can use Balanced on Optimism to borrow bnUSD, swap crypto, and transfer cross-chain. It’s simple, fast (30-60 seconds), and cheap (~$0.24 per transaction).

To get started, visit app.balanced.network.

Swap and transfer cross-chain

Balanced supports ETH, USDC, bnUSD, and BALN (the Balanced governance token) wrapper-free on Optimism. Swap them for crypto on other blockchains, or transfer them to a connected chain.

Borrow bnUSD with ETH

bnUSD is a decentralised, over-collateralised, cross-chain stablecoin, and you can leverage ETH on Optimism to get some. Borrow up to 67% of the value in bnUSD, and pay a 0.2% fee and 2% interest.

Balanced offers the most flexible stablecoin loan on the market, so you can choose to receive bnUSD (wrapper-free) on any of the 12 connected chains.

Loans are isolated, which means each collateral type (on every chain) has its own risk profile. For example, an ETH-backed loan on Optimism is separate to an ETH-backed loan on Arbitrum.

Supply ETH liquidity on ICON

If you connect an ICON wallet and add ETH and bnUSD to it, you can also supply liquidity to improve the trading experience. Liquidity pools earn 50% of the fee from each trade, and once cross-chain pools launch in January 2025, you can provide liquidity directly from Optimism.

How does the cross-chain connection work?

Balanced’s blockchain connections are powered by General Message Passing (GMP), a cross-chain messaging service that makes it seamless to interact between blockchains.

GMP relays messages between connected chains via the ICON blockchain. It connects to a custom relay on Optimism, which uses multiple relays – each managed by a separate entity – to ensure a secure connection.

Balanced has already used GMP to connect to Arbitrum, Archway, Avalanche, Base, BNB Chain, Havah, Injective, Solana, Stellar, Sui, and now Optimism.

It’s the last connection Balanced will ship in 2024, with connections to Polygon, Stacks, and more still to come in the new year.

Borrow, swap, and transfer crypto on Optimism

Balanced is a cross-chain DeFi hub, and it’s now available on Optimism.

To borrow, swap, and transfer cross-chain, visit app.balanced.network and sign in with your favourite wallet(s).

To learn more about Balanced, check out the website, read the docs, and join the Balanced community on Discord.

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