Thales Protocol Integrates Chainlink CCIP To Unlock Cross-Chain Staking and Protocol Rewards

We’re excited to announce that Thales Protocol has integrated Chainlink CCIP — the industry standard for secure cross-chain interoperability — across the Arbitrum, Base, and Optimism mainnets. We’re leveraging CCIP’s arbitrary messaging functionality to help synchronize and unify the THALES Staking and Protocol Rewards Mechanism in a chain-agnostic manner, helping enable a more seamless chain-agnostic staking experience for our users.

For the first time, choosing the network when staking THALES is made irrelevant due to the staking contracts across multiple chains being connected into a singular calculation via Chainlink CCIP’s secure and reliable cross-chain messaging functionality.

We selected CCIP as our preferred interoperability solution because Chainlink has the most proven track record of maintaining the highest standard of security and reliability in the Web3 industry, which is also why Thales Protocol is already an active user of the industry-standard Chainlink Data Feeds. Furthermore, CCIP is backed by the Risk Management Network — a separate, independent network that continually monitors and verifies cross-chain operations for suspicious activity. This additional layer of security is particularly important given historical industry exploits and the billions in user funds lost due to insecure and unreliable cross-chain infrastructure.

Until this integration, THALES staking rewards on every supported network (Arbitrum, Base, and Optimism) were distributed independently from each other via isolated rewards pools to stakers on each respective network, resulting in different network deployments having different staking APYs. Stakers on one network may have received fewer rewards compared to other networks for the same amount of Gamified Staking points and THALES staked. This influenced stakers to bridge their THALES between networks to receive a higher reward rate. Additionally, Thales Governance Structure had to actively balance the rewards for each network to try and create a balanced environment for all THALES stakers. Naturally, this was a difficult task which caused a lot of unnecessary logistical overhead for the Thales Protocol.

Similar to the staking mechanism, Thales Protocol trading products are deployed on Arbitrum, Base, Optimism, and Polygon, and they accrue SafeBox fees to isolated pools for each network. These fees are accrued in the contracts deployed on the network where the trading activity happened. As THALES holders recently voted to share the SafeBox fee accruals directly with stakers, there needed to be a solution that allows stakers to claim their share of these protocol rewards every week proportional to their global share of total THALES staked. This means that the SafeBox Fees from all networks need to be unified to a single sum and distributed to stakers equally regardless of which network they are staking on. This was an impossible problem to solve in a permissionless way — until the launch of Chainlink CCIP.

In order to help secure our cross-chain staking and protocol rewards calculations, we needed access to a highly secure and reliable interoperability solution. After reviewing various solutions, we integrated Chainlink CCIP because it provides a multitude of important benefits and features, such as:

• Time-tested security and reliability — CCIP’s consensus and messaging layer is powered by Chainlink decentralized oracle networks, which have already secured tens of billions of dollars for smart contracts and enabled over $9 trillion in onchain transaction value. CCIP also features additional layers of protection and reliability via the Risk Management Network and Smart Execution.
• Seamless integration — CCIP offers a unified cross-chain developer experience by providing a single, easy-to-integrate interface. Developers only need to integrate the CCIP Router onchain to start building secure cross-chain applications.
• Scalable architecture — CCIP eliminates the need for developers to write custom code for chain-specific integrations, while users can interact with any blockchain via a single interface.
• Future-proof — CCIP is built to support continuous updates, such as the integration of new blockchains, the introduction of advanced functionalities, and the addition of other defense-in-depth approaches to security. Thus, integrating with CCIP eliminates future switching costs should new cross-chain functionalities be needed.

“Chainlink’s track record of security and reliability is unmatched, which is why we’ve integrated Chainlink CCIP to help unlock a chain-agnostic cross-chain staking and protocol rewards mechanism for Thales Protocol. This allows the protocol to have a balanced cross-chain foundation and enables it to freely expand its products across networks without having to worry about the logistics and overhead of cross-chain staking rewards.” — Danijel, Thales Founder

About Thales Protocol

Thales is an Ethereum protocol that acts as the liquidity & settlement layer for prediction markets. This building block is the foundation of novel on-chain initiatives, from a platform for AMM-based positional markets to immersive gamified experiences, and much more.

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