Convert between AXL and US dollars at the live rate.
$2.64
−98.46% from current
$0.03787
+7.17% from current
Independent editorial ranking. Score is 0–10 across six criteria: Security, Fees, UX, Features, Support, Reputation.
US and EU users who prioritise a spotless security record — no major hack since 2011 — and want a serious pro-grade trading terminal.
Institutions and funds requiring an SEC-registered venue with segregated qualified custody and audited on-chain reserves.
Active spot traders chasing the deepest global liquidity and the widest listing catalogue outside the US perimeter.
Traders who mix spot and on-chain — the Web3 wallet, DEX aggregator and Ethereum L2 X Layer sit inside the same account as CEX pairs.
Long-horizon EU holders who want the oldest continuously-operating exchange (2011) with conservative listings and full MiCA licensing.
Derivatives-first traders who want tighter perp funding and a maker-friendly fee schedule; accept offshore regulatory footprint.
Top coins in the same category, ordered by market cap.
Axelar (AXL) is a Cosmos-SDK Layer 1 blockchain built for one job: moving messages and assets between other blockchains safely. Sergey Gorbunov (PhD, MIT) and Georgios Vlachos (formerly Algorand) founded the project in 2020, and the Axelar Foundation now governs the protocol. The network connects more than 60 chains, including Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Chain, Avalanche, Sui, Stellar, Filecoin, and most major Cosmos chains.
Where Axelar differs from a generic bridge is that it is itself a chain. A validator set runs the consensus, and those validators sign cross-chain messages and asset transfers using threshold signatures. The whole interop layer sits on top of a real blockchain with its own staking and governance, not a multisig. AXL is the gas, the staking, and the governance token; total supply is roughly 1.2 billion with ongoing emissions. Axelar shares its base technology with the broader Cosmos ecosystem, but the use case is different — it is a routing layer between chains rather than another app chain.
AXL trades on most major spot venues, with the deepest liquidity on AXL/USDT and AXL/USD pairs. Live data on this page comes from a multi-venue feed and refreshes every 60 seconds. The reference quote is volume-weighted across the order books with the most depth.
What actually moves the AXL price:
AXL printed an all-time high near $2.50 in early 2024 and has spent most of its life since well below that. For multi-year scenarios, see our Axelar price forecast.
The Axelar network has its own validator set running Tendermint consensus on a Cosmos-SDK chain. The interesting part is what those validators do beyond ordinary block production. Each validator runs light clients of the connected chains, watches for events on those chains, and participates in threshold signature schemes that authorize cross-chain actions. No single validator can sign a message alone; a quorum has to agree before anything moves.
The three core pieces of how this works in practice:
The roadmap upgrade is Axelar VM, sometimes called Amplifier. It lets external teams plug in their own proof systems and chain-specific verifiers, instead of forcing every connected chain through the same monolithic validator workflow. That is the path Axelar is taking to scale past the current 60-chain footprint without the validator set having to run light clients for every new chain itself.
Most users never interact with Axelar directly. They use applications built on top of it, and the two most visible ones are Squid Router and the Interchain Token Service.
Squid Router is the cross-chain swap UX powered by Axelar GMP. You start on one chain with one token, you end on a different chain with a different token, in a single transaction. Squid handles the DEX routing on the source chain, the GMP call across Axelar, and the destination-side swap automatically. For a user it looks like one click; under the hood it is three steps coordinated by Axelar messaging. Squid is the largest single source of GMP traffic on the network.
The Interchain Token Service (ITS) is the standard for issuing tokens that exist natively on multiple chains at once. Instead of bridging an asset and ending up with a wrapped IOU, an ITS token is deployed on every supported chain and bridged via Axelar messages with no honeypot of locked collateral. That is the standard Microsoft picked for parts of its Azure tokenized-asset platform, and it is what JP Morgan Onyx used for early proof-of-concept work on cross-chain settlement. Uniswap has also experimented with ITS for cross-chain governance.
For protocol revenue and AXL demand, ITS matters more than Squid. Squid drives volume and fees today; ITS drives integrations that are very hard to remove once they are deployed.
Axelar, LayerZero, and Wormhole are the three serious general cross-chain protocols. They overlap on the user-facing job (move tokens and messages between chains) but the security models and the integration profiles are different enough that they tend to win different customers.
For traders, AXL is more directly tied to network usage than ZRO is to LayerZero. Axelar fees flow into the chain and partly to AXL stakers. LayerZero fees are largely paid in stablecoins and chain-native gas, and the link to ZRO demand is more indirect.
AXL has three jobs on the network. It pays gas for cross-chain calls, it secures the chain through validator staking, and it carries voting weight in governance. Total supply is roughly 1.2 billion with ongoing emissions paid out as staking rewards. Inflation is meant to fall over time as fee revenue grows, but right now emissions are a meaningful share of validator pay.
How staking works on Axelar:
For AXL holders, staking is the closest thing to a yield. The protocol fee model still favors network growth over direct buybacks, so AXL accrues value mainly through staking rewards and through demand for gas as cross-chain volume rises. That makes the staking ratio worth watching: when more AXL is bonded, less is available to sell.
AXL is listed on most major regulated exchanges and is also accessible through Cosmos-native wallets. Buying is the easy part; the choice that matters is whether you stake from an exchange or from your own wallet. Most buyers follow five steps.
Send a small test transaction the first time you withdraw. A $1 test transfer beats a misrouted five-figure transaction, and Cosmos-side memos are unforgiving if you get them wrong on a centralized-exchange deposit.
Cross-chain protocols sit at the highest-risk layer of the crypto stack. AXL holders are taking on validator-set security risk on top of normal token volatility, and the threats specific to interop are not the same as the ones that hit a regular Layer 1.
This page is information, not financial advice. Talk to a licensed advisor before allocating real capital.
Analysis last updated:
Axelar (AXL) trades at $0.040586 with a 24-hour volume of $1.73M and a market capitalization of $49.11M. The asset is currently ranked #436 among all tracked cryptocurrencies.
In the last 24 hours, the AXL price has fallen +2.11%. On a seven-day window, Axelar has retraced +1.49%, under sustained selling pressure on both windows. Short-term moves are often amplified by liquidity, news flow, and derivatives positioning, so confirm signals across multiple indicators before acting.
Axelar's all-time high of $2.64 was set on March 1, 2024. The current price sits +98.46% below that peak. Distance from the all-time high is a common reference point when evaluating long recoveries and macro support or resistance.
Buying Axelar (AXL) is a five-step routine once you have picked the right venue and pair. The steps below mirror what most investors do today.
You can also use the Axelar converter above to estimate how much AXL you would get for a given dollar amount before placing the order.
Whether Axelar is a good investment depends on your goals, time horizon, and tolerance for volatility. Like all cryptocurrencies, AXL carries real market risk: prices can rise or fall sharply in a day, and past performance is not a reliable indicator of future returns.
This page provides data and analysis for educational purposes only. It is not financial advice. Always do your own research, diversify, and never invest more than you can afford to lose.
