Kujira Prepares New App Layer After THORChain Merge

With the support of a new token, the DeFi project Kujira joined forces with three ecosystem partners to ally to develop the app layer of THORChain.

The goal of the “Rujira Alliance,” a new organization created by the union of the decentralized finance (DeFi) network Kujira and several of its significant ecosystem projects, is to develop a new application layer for the cross-chain liquidity protocol THORChain.

According to THORChain founder John-Paul Thorbjornsen, also known as “JP THOR,” the new application layer would not be “another little project” but rather a new DeFi “behemoth” that would eventually challenge Solana. He made this claim in a post on the X platform on September 10.

To free up the Kujira team to concentrate entirely on developing the Rujira app layer, Thorbjornsen said that the new project would have a “combined treasury” and that he would serve as the project head shortly.

“RUJIRA will allow THORChain to debut a safe, well-managed, and well-executed DeFi app layer to allow THORChain to become the leading DeFi chain.”

According to him, each of the main DeFi verticals will have a product under the new app layer, including lending, money markets, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), order books, perps, and a token launchpad that is “fully plumbed to eight chains already.”

According to Thorbjornsen, THORChain has “solved” the maximum extractable value (MEV) problem by “splitting income between consensus and liquidity,” which means that THORChain offers a “much better” user experience than MEV.

Fusion, Unstake, and Wink, three of Kujira’s “key ecosystem” partners, joined to ally. A new coin named RUJI will power the new app layer.

Since the merger into RUJI would be optional, neither the project’s original blockchain network nor the existing KUJI coin of Kujira will be impacted.

KUJIRA’s August dispute

When Kujira’s founding team disclosed on August 2 that the company was experiencing a string of liquidity problems due to “exploits, socially engineered attacks, and fallouts within the ecosystem,” the news caused debate.

Its original KUJI token fell 70% in a single day. The price is $0.38, down 13% for the day. KUJI has dropped more than 91% from its all-time high of $5.56, which it reached on December 13 of last year, according to CoinGecko data.

After the new app layer was announced, the native RUNE (RUNE) token of THORChain saw an 8% increase, rising from $3.60 to $3.89.

To enable asset swaps between layer-1 blockchains that are often divided, THORChain is a layer-1 blockchain and decentralized exchange (DEX). It was built using Tendermint and the Cosmos-SDK and debuted in June 2022.