DOVER, DE— Union Labs, the sovereign interoperability layer, has teamed up with Canto, a permissionless general-purpose Layer-1 blockchain for DeFi, for general message passing and asset transfers from Ethereum, Cosmos Hub, and other IBC-enabled chains to Canto, it was announced March 21.
Through the partnership, Union will extend IBC capabilities to Canto and enable liquidity flow in and out of Canto. By integrating with Union, Canto users will not only have immediate access to native assets of the IBC-enabled chains, but also those that are exclusively transported by Union across the modular ecosystem. These include assets generated by the rollups built on Celestia and Movement, as well as native USDC issued by Noble. Last but not least, Union’s partnerships with EVM-compatible L2s such as Scroll will give immediate access to Ethereum tokens issued and used in those execution environments.
- Expanded interoperability options for our users, complementing our existing integration with LayerZero;
- New pathways to increase liquidity, attract users, and boost activity, especially from the Cosmos and Ethereum networks, directly into Canto;
- Access to a broader range of assets, including those on rollups built on Celestia and Movement, and the native issuance of USDC on Noble.”
Canto differentiates itself within the DeFi ecosystem by launching core primitives—such as decentralized exchanges, lending markets, and units of account—as Free Public Infrastructure (FPI), avoiding the rent-seeking model of issuing governance tokens. Contrary to the traditional approach where DeFi projects extract value through tokens, Canto ensures its services, like its ungoverned decentralized exchange, remain free and unmodifiable, aiming to prevent predatory evolution and offer perpetual, rent-free utility to its users. Given Canto’s commitment to true decentralization and trustlessness, a collaboration between two parties becomes not just strategic but also ideological.
Union Labs’ Co-Founder, Karel Kubat added: “This partnership signifies an increase in IBC's dominance across ecosystems and allows us to demonstrate the full potential of our interoperability solutions while contributing to the EVM and IBC enabled chains that prioritize sovereignty and open access. Union will enable users to transfer a broader range of assets to Canto, which will ultimately contribute to its ecosystem growth.”
The engineering teams at Union and Canto will be collaborating in the coming weeks, anticipating a smooth integration given both projects’ use of the latest version of the Cosmos SDK.
