What is Axelar?
Axelar is for Web3 what Stripe is for mobile and internet applications: it works on the back end, connecting various networks into one-click experiences for all users. The Axelar stack provides a decentralized network, protocols, tools, and APIs that allow simple cross-chain communication.
Axelar delivers secure cross-chain communication for Web3. Secure means Axelar is built on proof-of-stake, the battle-tested approach used by Ethereum, Cosmos, Avalanche, and more. Cross-chain communication means you can build a complete experience for your users that lets them interact with any asset, any application, on any chain with one click.
The two layers of Axelar
Axelar consists of two layers: The network and the API above it.
At Axelar’s core is a permissionless overlay network. It delivers Turing-complete cross-chain communication via proof-of-stake and permissionless protocols. Axelar validators monitor gateways on the interconnected chains (smart contracts) and run a decentralized protocol to process cross-chain messages between them.
The Axelar network explained
Plug-and-play integration
Developers go cross-chain without new programming languages. Once integrated, all new interconnected blockchains automatically become interoperable with the application, enabling limitless network effects.
Example
Turing-complete computation
Axelar enables developers to send any payload: a cross-chain message can call a function on another chain and integrate it into a one-click experience for any user, holding any asset. We call this General Message Passing.
Learn more about General Message Passing
Uniform architecture
Axelar uses permissionless protocols, the Cross-Chain Gateway Protocol (CGP, analogous to Border Gateway Protocol) and the Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol (CTP, analogous to File Transfer Protocol) to provide uniform security, translation and routing across any two connected chains.
Learn how Axelar’s protocols work
Proof-of-Stake security
Axelar network security is based on delegated proof-of-stake, which means a dynamic validator set using similar consensus to the networks Axelar connects.
See the network in action
Further reading:
What is Axelar?
Discover how Axelar works
Axelar Whitepaper
Developer resources