According to CryptoPotato, Chainlink announced the launch of Transporter on April 11, describing it as the next step in cross-chain bridging. The application is powered by Chainlink's Cross Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), which enables smart contracts to securely access data from external systems and facilitates trustless data connectivity between blockchains. Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov stated that the blockchain industry has long needed a secure method to transfer both value and data across chains.
Transporter is initially available for Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, BNB Chain, Ethereum, Optimism, and Polygon. The Chainlink team emphasized that bridging assets should not feel like throwing tokens into a void. To this end, Transporter's visual transaction tracker provides users with real-time updates on the status of their cross-chain transfers from start to finish. Nazarov explained that Transporter simplifies the use of Chainlink's CCIP security benefits for transferring large token values and critical messages across chains.
On the same day, Chainlink introduced a new 'lock and unlock' token transfer mechanism for CCIP in a separate blog post. This feature allows native tokens like ETH to be securely transferred across different blockchain networks. With this addition, CCIP now supports three token transfer methods: burn and mint, lock and mint, and lock and unlock. Chainlink also introduced an optimized pricing model for CCIP, aiming to make it one of the most cost-efficient solutions for cross-chain token transfers. Dune Analytics reported that CCIP network fees and revenue have recently surged, with a record $258,170 in March, a more than 300% increase from February.
In terms of price outlook, like most altcoins, LINK has been correcting since its 2024 high in mid-March. However, the recent product announcements gave the asset a 4.7% boost over the past 12 hours, reaching an intraday high of $18. Despite this, LINK has retreated 18% from its 2024 high of $21.70 on March 11, and is down 66% from its May 2021 peak price of $52.70. Despite these fluctuations, analysts see significant potential in LINK in the upcoming altseason due to its real-world asset tokenization properties.