New Cross-Chain and On-Chain Trading Platforms Emerge
New trading infrastructure is being developed for Solana and beyond. Azura has launched a no-fee, no-gas on-chain trading platform supporting USD trades across Solana, Ethereum, Base, and Arbitrum. In parallel, a project called beyond__tech is building native Bitcoin L1 interoperability, which could enable new liquidity flows from Bitcoin into the Solana ecosystem.
- Azura's team includes engineers from prominent firms like Citadel Securities, Two Sigma, and Coinbase, and has secured $6.9 million in seed funding from investors including Initialized Capital and Solana co-founder Raj Gokal. - The platform functions as a non-custodial wallet and aggregates liquidity from various DeFi protocols, explicitly including the Solana-based DEX, Raydium. - Azura's founder, Jackson Denka, was inspired to create the platform after observing the high revenue of simple, Telegram-based trading bots, identifying a market need for a more professional and unified on-chain trading terminal. - Prior to its public launch, Azura operated for a year as a private, invite-only beta called Thunder, which processed nearly $1 billion in lifetime volume and generated over eight figures in annualized revenue. - Beyond__tech's interoperability protocol is powered by LayerZero and audited by Zokyo, the same security firm that audits for the Solana Foundation, suggesting a high standard of security relevant for potential ecosystem integrations. - The project aims to create a "tri-directional" bridge, allowing for the transfer of assets like SOL to Bitcoin L1, the movement of Bitcoin assets (including BRC-20s and Runes) to over 140 other chains, and conversions between different Bitcoin token standards. - Beyond__tech's co-founder and CEO, Benjamin Charbit, was previously a Game Director at Ubisoft, working on major titles like *Assassin's Creed: Black Flag*, and was also the CEO of Darewise Entertainment, a company acquired by the major Web3 investor Animoca Brands. - The mainnet for beyond__tech is scheduled to launch in Q4 2025, with a token sale planned for November 2025.
