Wormhole Launches Staking and Governance For W Token Holders

Wormhole, a cross-chain interoperability protocol, deployed a multi-chain staking and governance mechanism for holders of its recently launched token, W.

Launched on June 6, the governance system allows W holders to create and vote on governance proposals across Solana, Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base. Tokenholders can move up to 100 million W tokens from Solana to Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible chains to participate in governance daily.

“Introducing stake for governance is a significant step toward decentralizing Wormhole,” Wormhole said. “This is your opportunity to participate in governance and influence the future direction of the Wormhole DAO and platform.”

Users can participate in Wormhole’s delegated Proof of Stake governance model by staking their W tokens and designating their governance power to a governance delegate. Stakers are not forced to lock up their tokens and can unstake or restake at any time.

Wormhole launched as a bridge enabling cross-chain transfers between Solana and other blockchains in 2021. On June 6, Wormhole handled approximately 188,800 cross-chain messages and $30 million worth of asset flows, according to WormholeScan.

To date, Wormhole has processed more than 1 billion messages, $43 billion worth of cross-chain transfers, and supports 30 different blockchains.

MultiGov

Wormhole’s multi-chain governance mechanism utilizes MultiGov, a new cross-chain governance mechanism leveraging Wormhole’s cross-chain interoperability protocol.

“By allowing users to vote from whatever chain they are on you break down the barrier of high gas fees and the complexity/cost of moving funds, you [abstract] a lot of the complexity with chain-to-chain movement,” tweeted Robinson Burkey, the co-founder of Wormhole.

Wormhole said any DAO on Solana, Ethereum, or EVM-compatible L2s can leverage MultiGov.

Wormhole launched its W governance token in April. The project airdropped 6% of the token’s supply to more than 400,000 wallets.

Last year, the protocol raised$225 million in token warrants at a $2.5 billion valuation in the largest crypto raise of 2023. The project notably suffered the second-largest DeFi exploit in February 2022 when it lost $320 million to hackers.

The price of W is up 10% in the past 24 hours, last changing hands for $0.68, according to CoinGecko data. Daily trading volume also increased by 150%.

Related: Wormhole’s W Token Climbs to $2.5 Billion Market Cap Post Airdrop