Thorchain Integration for Firo

Community Feedback
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Hey Firo Fam!

I recently appeared on Thorchain’s podcast where we discussed among many other things, the possibility of Firo being integrated with Thorchain. I wanted to seek the community’s appetite on this.

Timing was a little unfortunate as they had just experienced a hack where USD10M was drained from one of their vaults but we had planned this podcast almost a month in advance and the show must go on! Huge shout-out to Kenton and Coke for continuing with it.

Thorchain is one of the most used decentralized cross-chain liquidity networks and is natively integrated into many wallets like Trust Wallet, Ledger Live, Edge, Cake Wallet and Thorchain.

Personally, Thorchain has been on my radar for a long while. We have previously explored integration way back in 2021 and had discussions with 9 Realms but several things put it on hold, there was a high ‘bidding’ cost which we had to constantly maintain, we were kinda low priority for them and their aversion to privacy coins. Back then, they were also inundated by hack after hack, which also led me to believe that perhaps it wasn’t the right time to consider integration.

Today, Thorchain has grown a lot in scale and to their credit a lot of work has been done to make it easy to use with many integrations, liquid and also secure (despite the recent hack which tbf it has been a while since an actual hack happened). Also more importantly, the roadmap to getting integrated is quite clear since they are working on integrating Zcash and Dash which would have very similar setups as ours so we won’t be doing the integration from scratch. The liquidity requirements are much more manageable though they recommend a 25k-50k USD liquidity pool at least which to me is achievable and maintainable.

Once Thorchain have fixed their current issues, I personally think this would be a worthwhile integration to pursue both from a user and liquidity standpoint but also if Thorchain is positioning itself as the decentralized cross chain liquidity solution for privacy coins (Monero and I think Zano is coming too), I don’t want Firo to be left out over such a well used and important protocol despite the risks which are inherent with most protocols.

As in the interview I expressed that a multi pronged strategy in navigating Firo’s liquidity is required in a challenging environment. Atomic swap based DEXes like FiroDEX, BasicSwap and Bison, decentralized wrapping via Rosen bridge to get access to Defi/AMMs and crosschain liquidity pools like Thorchain and Serai all have a role to play and ensures censorship resistance and gives multiple options to users.

Also a side note, while Thorchain also has ‘wrapping’ in their app layer which is secured by the same vault infrastructure that they use, this doesn’t replace Rosen Bridge which is a much more minimal and simple approach to wrapping and is not linked to many other moving parts. I see them as complementary with different trade offs. Rosen is also probably going to be available much sooner (talking about a month or so) vs Thorchain which is at the very least several months or more.

Anyway, keen to hear feedback on this!

Reuben

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我们应该参与Thorchain的隐私生态，不能补排除在外。

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I agree with thorchain integration, You also mentioned Serai which is nearing completion too. I would say both are very good options for the Firo roadmap and help get exposure to more markets

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That is true. Not only that but either one could attract exponential volume increase in International markets.

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I think that is mainly JP who is no longer that close to the project anymore and to take his PR submissions with a huge grain of salt

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Should weigh the liquidy vs risk equation.
umm bout thorchain, do they rely on risky dependencies?

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THORChain enables users to swap native assets directly across blockchains without creating wrapped representations. That said THORChains history and track record has a pattern of failure when it comes to security (2021 - 2026). The only benefit is swaps without wrapping tokens which is opposite of what Rosen does if my initial understanding is correct?

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I’m about 67 on this one jk more like 40/60% for it and against it.

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Track record hasn’t been great but it has improved over the years and even the recent hack, the LP providers were made almost whole.

Well it’s also because Rosen only would be ‘ETH’ ecosystem specific while Thorchain allows swaps with things like BTC and other non-EVM type of chains. It reduces a lot of hops on the user side.

What are your thoughts ?

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If Thorchain usage is ever increasing and can be likened to an ascending elevator it would make sense to get in on or near the ground floor.

It is difficult to pick winners and one must cut one’s cloth accordingly, to mix metaphors. Even though Firo has a few generous sponsors, who appear to have deep pockets, there is a limit to what they will able to contribute to bootstrap liquidity in all these swapping platforms.

As the Thorchain project is of the same vintage as Firo and share many of the same values we might call them brothers in arms? It would be a shame not feature amongst the other privacy coins on this allied network.

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thorchain usage is increasing, xmr coming to it stable very very soon… its where firo needs to be! If we are there and you can make some % from providing liquidity, i think more and more will join. Huge interest to intersect with other privacy coins like xmr swaps

@reuben great work! I do hope this comes and Im willing to put some firo towards a bounty to get the integration going! Liquidity is huge issue still

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Thanks everyone for the feedback. We are in contact with the Thorchain team and will begin integration work soon. Good thing is that a lot of the work is already done by Dash which makes things easier.

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Is there any updates? Rosenbridge was excellent but thorchain integration would be phenomenal!

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Yes we have officially tasked a developer on it. Had a discussion with someone close to their team as well who will also help us get it through the community/team once we are closer.

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