It’s December, the final month of the final quarter of 2024. And with a lot of retail coming back in the market, one of the major projects I’m continuing to be bullish on is Across. I’ve written about Across several times before, and if you’ve been following me for the past year, you would have known that I first called out Across and their native token $ACX in early October 2023, from where it’s done more than a 10x during that time.
With a bit of holiday spirit, in today’s article, instead of going through the 12 days of Christmas, instead I’m going to be breaking down 12 reasons why I remain Optimistic(ally) bullish on Across Protocol’s future, and why I believe the market still hasn’t fully priced in Across’ true value. Let’s dive in shall we?
1. $ACX is now in price discovery
Now I’m not proclaiming myself a trader by any means, but if you take a look at the chart below, $ACX has clearly broken all time highs and is in a clear up trend. As long as the market continues to have new incoming liquidity, my bet is that we’re only going to continue to see $ACX get sent higher.
2. $ACX is still significantly undervalued
If we take a look at DefiLlama’s stats on bridges and their total 24 hour/7 day volume, Across sits at #3:
Despite being #3 on this list, the other bridges that have their own tokens on this list, namely Wormhole and Stargate, both have marketcaps that make $ACX’s look abysmally small. $ACX has a $67.3 million marketcap, yet the nearest competitors Wormhole’s $W has a $919.2 million marketcap and Stargate’s $STG is $81.6 million.
3. Single-sided LPs w/ no impermanent loss
Although Across technically doesn’t even need LPs since it’s an intents-based system (more on that later), Across still offers single-sided LPs, most which are better than major lending services such as AAVE:
4. Orders filled in seconds
This is just what I call straight up wizardry. If I’m transferring funds L2-to-L2, the order gets filled faster than I would ever be able to check my wallet. Take a look at a list of previous transactions I’ve made, with the majority of them getting filled in just 1–3 seconds:
5. Some of the cheapest fees around
The way that Across fills these orders so quickly (and so cheaply) is through its intents-based system. 3rd-party actors known as relayers are competing against one another trying to fill your order in the fastest and cheapest way possible. With little risk to the bridger, Across simply acts as a medium to make sure the order was filled legitimately.
6. Did I mention rebates?
Apart from fees being dirt cheap, you can even earn rebates depending on your route. For instance right now you can earn up to 95% in $OP rewards for bridging to certain L2s such as Zora, Optimism, and Base:
7. ERC-7863
The intents-based model has been proven so successful, that many different projects are starting to partner with Across in order to integrate crosschain intents via ERC-7863, which seeks to unify liquidity across all of Ethereum’s L2s:
8. Across+
Apart from ERC-7863, any platform can integrate Across’ tech into their own protocol, just as Straddl did this past month:
https://medium.com/media/2be9882c9abe52f73de112ed026e6998/href
9. Bilders be Bilding
The Across team continually keeps rolling out different integration of its tech to different L2s, with more L2s getting added every single month, the most recent being Zora. Want an L2 that’s not on there? Start a conversation on their forums.
10. Community, Community, Community
In my opinion, a protocol is only successful as its community, and it’s clear if you’ve ever spent time in their discord, that Across Rangers are extremely active, constantly putting on different community calls, contests, and games. (This article in particular is part of PublishOx/Across writing contest)
https://medium.com/media/a0f3531aab5fe39d068a21ab4ab4bb28/href
11. $ACX has out performed both $BTC and $ETH
Taking into account metrics over the past year, $ACX has been one of my best performing bags so far this year, outperforming both Bitcoin and Ethereum:
12. Did someone mention a fee-switch?
Apart from voting, one of the biggest criticisms about $ACX is it’s lack of utility. With many different protocols now starting to vote on turning on the fee switch for token holders, my hope is that $ACX will do the same, which would increase it’s value immensely.
DeFi apps weigh token dividends ahead of new Trump crypto rules
Conclusion
When bridging across L2s, Across is my go-to #1 dapp, for it has one of the cheapest, fastest, and most secure products out there. If you’re wanting to learn more about how Across works, especially with it’s relayers and intents-based system, I highly recommend that you read my deepdive that I went into earlier this year:
How Across keeps Linea-ing them up
Otherwise if you still have questions, come join the fun and start talking to other rangers in Across’ Discord!
And as always thanks for taking the time to read this and be sure to follow me on twitter (https://twitter.com/CryptosWith) to get all my latest updates. Also, looking for a gift for your Crypto-loving/hating friend? Give them a REKT journal to cheer them up!
The REKT Journal: Building upon the broken dreams of HODLers
Disclaimer: This is not financial advice and this is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please as always, do your own research and find what investments are best for you. Cheers everyone!
The 12 D̶a̶y̶s Reasons for Across-mas was originally published in Coinmonks on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.