With bridges being of paramount importance in the blockchain ecosystem, the LayerZero Foundation has made an offer to acquire Stargate. In turn, the Wormhole Foundation has expressed its intention to make a counter-offer. Who will win?
LayerZero makes an offer to acquire Stargate
On Sunday, August 10, the LayerZero (ZRO) team made a governance proposal on the Startgate (STG) bridge forum with the aim of acquiring it.
While the STG token was valued at $0.1637 at the time of the proposal, the LayerZero Foundation made an offer of $0.1675 per token, or 0.08634 ZRO for 1 STG.
While Stargate already relies on LayerZero technology, such an acquisition demonstrates the ambition to take the bridge to the next level:
This offer aims to accelerate the development of Stargate and LayerZero by providing Stargate with the resources necessary to deploy an ambitious roadmap that extends its capabilities beyond a simple bridge, while integrating an exceptional, revenue-generating protocol that includes the end consumer more deeply in the LayerZero ecosystem. If this proposal is adopted, Stargate will have more dedicated technical resources to deploy and accelerate faster than ever before.
If successful, in addition to the token conversion, Stargate’s decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) will be dissolved and the bridge will be fully integrated into the LayerZero ecosystem.
At the moment, governance is largely in favor of the LayerZero Foundation’s proposal, with more than 88% in favor. However, it should be noted that even though no LayerZero members are participating in the vote in order to avoid skewing the results, a few large portfolios from other investors are still tipping the scales:
Wormhole also expresses interest
While the vote is expected to end on Saturday night, we could still see a reversal of the situation. This is because the Wormhole bridge teams have indicated that they intend to make a counter-offer.
The competitor believes that LayerZero’s $110 million offer undervalues Stargate, and the Wormhole Foundation intends to seek an extension to present its arguments:
In order to maximize value for Stargate token holders, the Wormhole Foundation respectfully requests that the current Snapshot be suspended for five business days to allow time to finalize its offer. We believe this slight delay will ensure a more equitable process and maximize economic benefits for all stakeholders.
In a world of interoperable blockchains, bridges are strategically important, providing a passive source of revenue from the funds that pass through them. According to data from DefiLlama, Stargate has recorded $693 million in volume over the last 30 days. Stay tuned for further developments.
