On June 26 at 5:48 p.m. US Eastern Daylight Time, the Metronome cryptocurrency activated the unique capability to "chainhop" across blockchains. The first chainhop was between the Ethereum and Ethereum Classic blockchains. The team is building chainhop support for the QTUM and RSK chains and is actively researching EOS and Cardano. (Graphic: Business Wire)

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fulfilling the promise of providing the world’s first two-way, cross-blockchain cryptocurrency, Metronome ($MET) today announced that it has initiated a first-of-its-kind transfer of MET tokens from one blockchain to another – Ethereum ($ETH) to Ethereum Classic ($ETC) – and back. This chainhop feature, available to all Metronome users, represents a significant step in how the financial and technology industries could approach cryptocurrencies as an enduring asset class.

Conventionally, cryptocurrencies are tied to their native blockchain, or the publicly maintained ledger that records their users’ transactions. This is similar to having someone’s money anchored to their bank’s bookkeeping system, forcing them to exchange their “Bank ‘A’ dollars” for “Bank ‘B’ dollars” should they want to switch banks for any reason, such as high fees, poor service, or disagreements over governance. Further, the cryptocurrency-to-native-blockchain relationship potentially jeopardizes the safety of one’s digital assets, since it is wholly dependent on the stability of the community that maintains that currency and its blockchain.

With the introduction of Metronome’s chainhop capability, the Metronome team showed that it is possible to maintain your holdings in a cryptocurrency and choose the blockchain ledger that most suits one’s requirements for stability and governance.

Jeff Garzik, the principal architect of Metronome and one of Bitcoin’s original contributors, offered additional context and detail in a Medium post:

“Decentralization is an article of faith within the blockchain industry and drives a lot of what we all do. That said, one species of centralization that our industry has become comfortable with is the notion that a digital asset must be forever tied to its blockchain ledger. … Metronome expands how we think of decentralization — the elimination of chain permanence.”

This cross-chain capability is available via the Metronome desktop wallet (Windows, MacOS, and Linux), as well as the mobile wallets for iOS and Android. For developers, all components are available on GitHub.

The Metronome team continues to explore new chainhops and has made significant headway for launch on other networks, such as QTUM and RSK, and conducting further research on EOS and Cardano. This expands user choice and the overall potential for the currency.

About Metronome

Launched in 2018, Metronome is a wholly autonomous cryptocurrency built for:

● Usability: Metronome uniquely supports all currency use-cases – store of value, unit of account, and payment mechanism – for both humans and machines;

● Fairness: Nobody holds special privileges or access in the Metronome ecosystem, with all opportunities to purchase Metronome made available to the public; and

● Endurance: Metronome was designed to be the first cryptocurrency to move across blockchains, offering a unique level of digital asset protection.

Media and Community Resources

Readers can explore the following resources to learn more about Metronome:

● Metronome meetup kit

● YouTube demonstration of first chainhop

● Telegram

● Medium

● Twitter

● GitHub

The Metronome team strongly encourages all users to review the Owner’s Manual before purchasing or using MET. The Owner’s Manual is available in English, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, Korean, and Russian.