Blue Star/SatoshiPay's Pendulum launches "Spacewalk" blockchain bridge
( ), a technology investment company, noted an announcement by SatoshiPay that its Pendulum open-source blockchain has released "Spacewalk", a blockchain bridge connecting the Stellar and Polkadot decentralised networks. Blue Star owns 27.9% of SatoshiPay.
Spacewalk is described as a trust-minimised bridge that supports smooth and seamless transfer of assets between the two aforementioned ecosystems, allowing closer collaboration in the decentralised finance sector. Spacewalk should also enable synergies between the traditional fintech and decentralised finance (DeFi) sectors.
Pendulum anticipates that the ability to use stable digital currencies, backed by traditional fiat currencies, will support a wide range of new use cases for the Polkadot and Stellar networks. Pendulum is also committed to advancing Forex trading into the blockchain space, betting that Spacewalk will serve as critical infrastructure to bring stablecoin liquidity for Forex trading to Pendulum and, in turn, to Polkadot and Stellar.
Alex Wilke, Co-Founder of Pendulum, commented: "With Spacewalk, we are breaking down the barriers between different blockchain ecosystems, allowing for broader usage of Stellar's stablecoins and fuelling Pendulum's on-chain forex markets. This innovation marks a new era for fiat-connected decentralized finance, and we are proud to lead the charge."
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With Spacewalk, Blue Star's SatoshiPay aims to pioneer easy interoperability between decentralised finance networks. Initially the bridge will connect Stellar and Polkadot, with a view to extend to other major blockchain networks such as Cosmos and Ethereum, merging the technologies developed for Stellar and InterBTC.
Additionally, Spacewalk aims to bring fiat-connected liquidity for Forex trading to Polkadot and Stellar. Capturing even a sliver of the US$6.6 trillion Forex market will generate significant traffic for the platform.
In simpler terms, Pendulum aims to modernise traditional financial infrastructure by bringing together high-quality fiat tokens in a single, powerful DeFi network. Spacewalk aims to extend that to other DeFi networks.
In addition to the launch of Spacewalk, Blue Star announced that its PEN token had commenced trading on the Singapore-based MEXC crypto exchange on 13 March 2023. This followed the launch of Pendulum on Polkadot Mainnet last month.
Blue Star owns 27.9% of SatoshiPay, which in turn has a 5.5% interest of Pendulum's future PEN tokens.
As of September 2022, SatoshiPay was fully funded for another year. It was profitable in FY21, and expected to remain profitable in FY22. It maintains close relationships with large crypto organisations and has a growing reputation in the industry.
SatoshiPay's current valuation is based on its last external fundraise, which took place in February 2019. Blue Star believes SatoshiPay's current carrying valuation of £4.8m significantly understates its market value. However, based on that valuation and the investment to date of £1.8m, SatoshiPay is showing an unrealised gain for Blue Star of c. £3m.
If the Pendulum network and Spacewalk deliver on their objectives, SatoshiPay should be well-placed within the DeFi market, currently valued at US$55bn. The company is well-positioned to earn fees and accumulate tokens in existing and new DeFi projects.
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