The Defiant

Ren Project Joins Forces With Alameda Research

Ren Project, an open protocol that facilitates value transfer between blockchains, has joined forces with quantitative trading firm Alameda Research.  Ren Project said in a Medium post that it will be prioritizing support for the Solana blockchain as part of its new partnership with Alameda.  They plan to bridge assets between Solana and Ren’s multi-chain…

By: Dan Kahan Loading...

Ren Project, an open protocol that facilitates value transfer between blockchains, has joined forces with quantitative trading firm Alameda Research.

Ren Project said in a Medium post that it will be prioritizing support for the Solana blockchain as part of its new partnership with Alameda.

They plan to bridge assets between Solana and Ren’s multi-chain library by Q2, and expect this to have a “profound impact” on Solana’s main decentralized exchange, Serum. Of note, Serum is an offshoot of FTX, the crypto derivatives exchange founded and run by Sam Bankman-Fried—who is also the CEO of Alameda Research.

The partnership should also bring more users and volume to Ren’s interoperability network, RenVM, the post said.

Ren recently made a splash in the DeFi community by bringing Dogecoin to Ethereum with both an ETH and a USDC pair, so they have some good momentum going if they’re aiming to draw in new users.

That said, while many DeFi community members seemed tentatively excited on Twitter, some expressed concern over the nature of the partnership and whether or not the move would actually further Ren’s efforts towards decentralization.

“Alameda’s track record for decentralization isn’t great, with their prized project SushiSwap being governed by a multisig admin key. It’s very unclear whether this new partnership will help or hurt Ren’s quest for decentralization,” DeFi researcher Chris Blec told The Defiant.

Others felt that even if Ren remained centralized, centralization under a trusted company like FTX might be better than an unknown alternative.

“Previously: Ren was controlled by a central party I don‘t know and don‘t trust,” tweeted crypto researcher Hasu. “Now: Ren is controlled by a central party I know and trust.”

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