On October 21 the Inter-Blockchain Communication IBC protocol went live on the Terra LUNA mainnet.
Tendermint s protocol enables sovereign chains to communicate with each other while allowing the transfer of tokens between Cosmos ATOM and other IBC-compatible blockchains.
By further increasing the network s interoperability capacity, IBC is expected to significantly boost Terra s use case, unleashing UST and LUNA in the Cosmos ecosystem.
Proposal 128 to initiate IBC on Terra has passed, meaning that IBC is now live on the Terra mainnet, read the announcement on Twitter.
Asset transfers, data availability proofs, and more can all be seamlessly ported between Terra and IBC-enabled chains in the Cosmos ecosystem, Terra developers added.
According to Cosmos Cap, which keeps tabs on Cosmos market capitalization, LUNA is the second crypto in the ecosystem.
With its current $16,8 billion market cap, Terra s native crypto is one step behind Binance Coin BNB This milestone followed a recent successful launch of Wormhole V 2 support for Terra, which enables UST and LUNA to be seamlessly ported to Ethereum, Solana, and Binance Smart Chain using a single unified interface.
Both launches are expected to significantly reduce friction for Terra s native cryptos moving from one blockchain to another.
According to Do Kwon, co-founder and CEO of Terraform Labs, the South Korean company behind the blockchain project Terra, who expects the demand for UST in cross-chain environments to accelerate, the protocol s native stablecoin could potentially reach the $10 billion market cap mark by this year s end.
Kwon argued that the current regulatory scrutiny surrounding decentralized stablecoins continues to boost the demand for decentralized stablecoins, which rely on blockchain-based collateral for stability.
At $2,74 billion, Terra s UST is currently the second largest decentralized stablecoin by market cap, after DAI.
While Kwon s $10 billion market cap prediction for UST this year might sound too bullish, overtaking DAI, with a current market cap of $6,47 billion, appears within reach.