Launching a token across many chains has usually meant splitting its supply into wrapped versions, each with its own liquidity. The OFT standard keeps one token and one supply across every chain it lives on. To build with it, visit Developers or reach out to our team.
When a token needs to exist across multiple blockchains, it must be extended to each network through some mechanism. The common path has been to let bridges mint a representation of the token on every destination chain. The original stays locked in a contract, and a bridge-issued wrapped token circulates in instead.
But that token is not the same asset. Each bridge mints its own, so a single token turns into many: the canonical token on its home chain, plus a separate wrapped version for every bridge and every destination it reaches.
The OFT (Omnichain Fungible Token) standard removes the wrapper. The token itself becomes omnichain, with one canonical supply across every chain it is deployed to. Moving it between chains debits the source and credits the destination, so the same token exists everywhere and the total supply never changes.
What a split supply costs
A split supply fragments the one property that makes a token useful across chains: its liquidity. When several wrapped versions of the same asset circulate, each one trades in its own pools. Depth splits across those pools, and the wrapped token a holder gets on one chain is not fungible with the wrapped token on another.
Supply also becomes harder to reason about. The real total is spread across the original plus every wrapper, and reconciling it means trusting each bridge's own mint-and-burn accounting. For the team designing a token's distribution, chain scope, and liquidity strategy, every new chain adds another version to manage instead of extending the reach of the existing asset.
How an OFT keeps supply unified
An OFT keeps supply unified by moving the token itself instead of minting a stand-in. For a token issued through the standard, a cross-chain transfer burns the amount on the source chain and mints the same amount on the destination. For a token that already exists as an ERC-20, an OFT Adapter locks it on its home chain and mints on the destination.
Either way, no new wrapped version is created, and total supply is unchanged. The token a holder receives on the destination chain is the canonical token, not a bridge IOU. Ten tokens moved from one chain to another leave ten tokens in total: removed on the source, issued on the destination.
What unified supply changes for a launch
Unified supply turns the choice of which chain to support into a distribution decision instead of a liquidity problem. The token is one asset everywhere it lives, so the decisions that matter for a launch get simpler.
- One liquidity base. The token is fungible on every chain, so its liquidity pools into one market instead of splitting across wrapped versions.
- One number to account for. Supply caps, emissions schedules, and reporting all reference a single total across chains.
- Adding a chain extends the same token. A later deployment joins the existing supply instead of forking a new version to bootstrap.
The OFT standard is in production across 170+ chains and has moved $260B+ in cumulative token transfer volume today, so extending a token to a new chain follows a path many issuers have already taken.
Build with LayerZero
Unified supply is the default when a token is issued as an OFT. One asset with one supply, and the same token on every chain it reaches, without a wrapped version standing in for it anywhere.
To launch a token with unified supply, visit Developers or reach out to our team.