What is Everclear

Source:https://x.com/everclearorg

Everclear (formerly known as Connext) is the first clearing Layer, committed to optimizing interchain liquidity management and solving the problem of fragmented cross-chain liquidity. Its core mechanism operates a liquidity market at the L2 layer, allowing intention solvers, market makers, centralized exchanges (CEX), and other institutional participants to efficiently manage fund flows through net asset value calculation and auction mechanisms.

In 2024, Everclear, in collaboration with Renzo, pioneered the concept of Chain Abstraction, realizing the function of ‘re-collateralization from anywhere’ and successfully attracted TVL of over 1 billion USD. The project is supported by many well-known investment institutions, including Pantera Capital, Consensys, Polychain, 1kx, Coinbase, Hashed, EF, OKX, Dilectic, etc.

The core mechanism of Everclear

1. Everclear Core Features

Everclear provides a new on-chain settlement mechanism designed to optimize the Intent-based Transactions model, enabling liquidity providers and users to transfer funds more efficiently across multiple blockchains. Its core features include:

1. Liquidity Netting: Calculate the liquidity needs of each chain through on-chain smart contracts and reallocate funds to the most suitable chain. About 80% of cross-chain liquidity adjustment needs can be reduced through netting settlement, thereby reducing costs by 10 times.
2. Programmable Settlement Layer: Allows liquidity providers (Rebalancers) and intent solvers (Solvers) to access different cross-chain communication mechanisms (such as bridging protocols, liquidity pools, CEX, etc.) to achieve efficient fund rebalancing.
3. Permissionless Expansion: Any public chain, L2, and Rollup project can seamlessly integrate Everclear’s settlement mechanism to achieve automated cross-chain fund scheduling.

Source:https://docs.everclear.org/concepts/how-it-works/architecture

2. How does Everclear work?

Everclear adopts the Spoke-Hub model for cross-chain liquidity management, and its working principle is as follows:

1. Deposit: Fund providers (Rebalancers) deposit assets into the Spoke contract and specify the target chain.
2. Netting: In the Hub contract of the clearing chain, all fund transfer requests will be matched and the optimal fund flow path will be calculated.
3. Dynamic Discount Mechanism (Dutch Auction): If the liquidity demand cannot be immediately matched, the system will auction the request at a discounted price according to the preset BPS (basis point) discount rules to incentivize arbitrageurs to participate in liquidity adjustment.
4. Settlement: All completed orders will enter the settlement queue and the final funds will be transferred to the Spoke contract on the target chain through cross-chain messaging protocols (such as Hyperlane), ensuring that users receive the corresponding assets.

3. How does Everclear optimize cross-chain liquidity?

Everclear focuses on optimizing the three pain points of current cross-chain liquidity management:

1. Reduce the problem of liquidity fragmentation: Match the funding needs of different chains through net asset value calculation to avoid high cross-chain costs caused by liquidity dispersion.
2. Reducing arbitrage costs and improving settlement efficiency: adopting a dynamic discount mechanism (Dutch Auction) to ensure that arbitrageurs can participate in the market at the best price and improve liquidity circulation efficiency.
3. Supports large-scale expansion, suitable for L2 and Rollups: Everclear adopts a permissionless scaling mechanism, allowing any blockchain application to integrate it for efficient cross-chain settlements.

Application scenarios of Everclear

• Intent-Based Trading: Protocols such as UniswapX, 1Inch, CoWSwap, Across all adopt the intention-based matching trading model. Everclear can help liquidity providers of these protocols optimize their fund management.
• Centralized Exchange (CEX) Liquidity Management: CEX needs to maintain sufficient funds on multiple chains to meet user withdrawal demands. Everclear’s clearing mechanism can help CEX automate the flow of funds between chains.
• Cross-chain Staking & LSD Solution: By combining Renzo’s ‘Re-staking from Anywhere’ feature, Everclear can optimize cross-chain staking yield and support efficient transfer of LST (Liquidity Staking Token) on multiple chains.

CLEAR Token Economics

Everclear’s predecessor was Connext, which completed a brand reshaping in Q4 2024 and officially launched the first settlement layer protocol after the release of the mainnet beta version, providing more efficient cross-chain settlement services for the DeFi ecosystem.

In December 2024, Everclear DAO passed a crucial proposal approving the migration of NEXT token to CLEAR and introducing a new token economics, including staking incentives and DAO governance rewards. This initiative will further promote the development of the protocol, bringing long-term benefits to holders, liquidity providers, and governance participants.

The total supply of CLEAR is 1 billion, including:

• 19%: Market circulating supply (including airdrops)
• 41%: Community and ecosystem (DAO 15.5%, Ecosystem supporters 13%, Labs 3%, Foundation 9%)
• 18%: Core Contributors and Advisors (Locked Up)
• 22%: Early investors (locked up)

Source:https://www.everclear.org/blog/the-future-is-clear

As of the time of writing (February 7, 2025), the circulation of CLEAR is 207 million, with a market value of 8.52 million US dollars. The current circulation of CLEAR accounts for about 20% of the total supply. Investors are advised to carefully evaluate the risks and manage them.

CLEAR token economic model

Source:https://www.everclear.org/blog/the-future-is-clear

1. Voting-Staking (Vote-Bonding) system

CLEAR adopts a Vote-Bonding (vb) system, enabling holders to participate in governance by staking CLEAR and receiving voting-bonded CLEAR (vbCLEAR), thereby influencing protocol incentive distribution.

• CLEAR collateral: Holders can choose to lock up to 2 years of CLEAR in exchange for vbCLEAR.
• Governance Voting: vbCLEAR holders can vote to decide which cross-chain solutions, liquidity providers (Solver), and blockchain ecosystems can receive rewards.
• Protocol Fee Allocation: All Solvers and users using the Everclear protocol are required to pay a dynamic fee of 0.2-1 bps, which will be proportionally distributed to vbCLEAR holders.

2. Incentive Mechanism of Protocol

CLEAR adopts a non-inflationary incentive model to ensure the long-term sustainable development of the protocol:

• Solver Incentives: Distribute rewards based on the contribution ratio of settlement activities to improve liquidity utilization efficiency.
• DAO governance rewards: vbCLEAR holders can receive governance fees generated by the protocol and influence the flow of funds.

Through this mechanism, Everclear optimizes cross-chain liquidity allocation, making it easier for the emerging public chain ecosystem to attract liquidity and solving the “liquidity chicken and egg” problem in the DeFi industry.

How to participate in the Everclear ecosystem?

For users who want to participate in the Everclear ecosystem, here are the ways to get involved for different roles:

Holders (CLEAR Holders)

• Stake CLEAR to earn vbCLEAR and participate in governance
• Influence cross-chain liquidity allocation through voting
• Get protocol fee split

Solver and Rebalancer

• Obtain CLEAR incentives by settling trades through Everclear
• Participate in governance and decide the flow of funds

Public chain (Chains)

• Staking CLEAR to attract Solver support for ecological liquidity
• Optimizing incentive mechanisms through governance voting

Gate.io has launched CLEAR, start trading now:https://www.gate.io/trade/CLEAR_USDT

Future Development Plan

The full version of Everclear mainnet is expected to be launched in 2025, which will further improve the capital efficiency of Solver by 10-100 times compared with existing protocols, and further reduce user costs. Everclear is committed to promoting the vision of “chain abstraction”, which means that in the future, thousands of blockchains can seamlessly connect like the Web2 internet, so that users do not have to worry about the existence of underlying chains.

Conclusion

Everclear (CLEAR) is one of the most innovative liquidity management solutions in the current blockchain ecosystem. With its unique settlement layer design, the protocol significantly reduces the fragmentation problem of cross-chain liquidity and provides a more efficient and cost-effective fund settlement mechanism. As the L2 and Rollups ecosystem continues to expand, Everclear is expected to become the core infrastructure for inter-chain fund flow in the future.

Everclear is pushing the blockchain world towards a true Multi-Chain Future. Its unique net value settlement and dynamic auction mechanism will completely change the management of cross-chain liquidity.