Axelar

Axelar is a blockchain network designed to connect other blockchains, allowing decentralized applications and their users to interact across different chains through a single interface. The problem it addresses is fragmentation: assets and messages normally cannot move freely between separate blockchain ecosystems without specialized infrastructure. Axelar positions itself as that infrastructure layer, aimed at both developers building cross-chain applications and end users who want to move assets or trigger actions across networks without managing multiple wallets or tokens.

Axelar runs its own proof-of-stake blockchain where validators produce blocks, participate in multiparty cryptographic signing, and vote on the states of external chains they are monitoring. The AXL token is used to pay network transaction fees and for governance, and token holders can delegate their AXL to validators in exchange for staking rewards, minus the validator's commission. Crucially, end users of applications built on Axelar do not need to hold AXL directly, because the network handles conversion from source-chain gas tokens to AXL on the back end.

Fees on the Axelar network are paid by users of cross-chain transactions and denominated in the source chain's native token, with conversion to AXL handled automatically; these fees flow to validators and token holders who participate in staking. The network also issues inflationary rewards that increase total AXL supply, though the project describes a mechanism by which transaction fee volume could eventually make net supply deflationary. Approximately 99.05 percent of the supply is already in circulation at this point in time, leaving a dilution overhang of roughly 0.96 percent, meaning the gap between circulating and fully diluted supply is small. The fully diluted valuation is about 1.01 times the current market capitalization, consistent with that near-complete issuance.