The ZetaChain mainnet is set to go live in a few days' time, marking the beginning of one of crypto’s latest cross-chain experiments.

The big picture is that ZetaChain will integrate with many blockchains of different types, from Bitcoin and Ethereum to chains in the Cosmos ecosystem. It will offer the ability to build applications that natively use cryptocurrency held on each of these chains, essentially bringing them all together.

But there is a lot of risk involved. A similar project called Thorchain relies on the same core technology and is limited to just making swaps between these chains. Yet its network was hacked multiple times in weeks in 2021, raising concerns as to whether this type of approach is far too ambitious.

“If you're building a cross-chain, multi-chain app, there's …