Today we are witnessing a new milestone in the blockchain industry. We are entering a new frontier of transferring value from one blockchain to another. Please note that we did not have this problem five years ago. dApps were scarce, and blockchains mainly offered a token as a store of value that users could transfer to each other. However, with the development of smart contracts and dApps, DeFi in particular, we are witnessing many more use-cases for tokens. However, these tokens might not be present on a single blockchain.
More and more separate blockchains enter the crypto industry, with each blockchain having its users and dApps. As users start to interact with dApps on different blockchains, an issue of transferring assets arises.
Usually, we solve this issue by using blockchain bridges — apps that transfer (bridge) a particular asset onto another chain. If you ever used more than one blockchain, I’m sure you at least wondered how to move assets between them.
Solutions to efficient bridging vary in approach. Making an efficient bridge is not a trivial task. A bridge has to make many decisions when deploying, such as: How do we communicate data between the blockchains? How do we represent assets on each blockchain? What do we do with the transferred assets, burn them or lock them? Who has custody over these assets? And many more. Answers to these questions significantly affect the security and trustfulness of the bridge.
Ideally, we would want a trustless, secure solution relying on the security of the underlying blockchain that has a low risk of someone attacking the bridge or keeping custody over the bridge assets.
Connext enters the game. With Connext latest implementation, Amarok, Connext introduces an Optimistic bridge infrastructure to improve security, minimize trust dependence, and decrease costs with faster transactions.
Don’t know what Optimistic Rollups are? You can read more about Optimistic Rollups in my other post.
Connext will be relying on Routers posting bids on a transaction. A so-called Sequencer (third party that matches routers to transactions) picks a router. Later, routers execute transactions using specific Connext implementations for message relay (Interchain Gateway Protocol) between the blockchains and liquidity provision (Nxtp). As a result of the Router’s execution, transactions will be settled only in 2 on-chain calls in a much shorter period. When the assets are bridged, Routers claim the funds against Nomad protocol that utilizes optimistic rollups to ensure valid transactions.
End-users, we will see faster, cheaper transactions. What’s more important is that Connext settles transactions in a decentralized manner with trustless and secure implementation. Connext is a big step up from the current bridge implementations that imply a lot of trust/custody to execute a transaction. I am very excited about the Connext Amarok upgrade and the future of bridges. Bridging the future seems promising and strong, and the Connext is leading the way.
