I am a big fan of Bitcoin Trilema and advocate for the Highest Security ever. So, coding securely and properly (without cutting corners and over-promoting scalability) is out of my question. Nevertheless, being tight and restricted to only one transferring structure is a bit discouraging, maybe excluding Bitcoin.
With the bitcoin ledger running bitcoin transactions I feel OK and do not have that problem. It is superior value storage and a special payments system IMO. Special by definition needs to be special in order to stay special, with nothing added to it!
But all the “others” L1, L2, and para or side-chain solutions may do better if secure intercommunication is enabled.
I remember when I first experience that claustrophobic feeling, it was just about soon after I crossed from Ethereum to Polygon Matic. I was pioneering in some ways crossing through a Polygon bridge and using a Polygon wallet. The whole process was a spectacular event, and it took about 7 minutes to hop & wrap about 1 Ether. No one attacked me, hacked me, or crooked me and my delivery was minted and wrapped with full success. I even took a couple of screenshots as a memento for further generation. I also vividly remember the look my wife gave me when monitoring my excitement. I know it was a bit emergent and even weird, especially for non- cryptonatives.
Anyway, soon after that successful cross out, I start to develop that one-chain-claustrophobia feeling, and it has grown stronger as time passed by. Same time I observed and followed the events of the bridges-hack-bonanza. A new day and a new hack, some of them spectacular and with the record “gaining”.
Initially, I tried to avoid bridge hopping and shifted my tokens through some centralised exchanges. It was quite a balmy idea, considering the complexity and costs of operations, but it offers me some sort of independence from lockouts. In the short run, it worked, but in long run not, which may be rather obvious without the need for additional explanation. It was clear to me I need interoperability! Whatever it takes, the simple but safe bridging options (direct or non-direct), or a couple of more sophisticated solutions. The more and safer, the better.
At the end of the block, I knew that the safety of crossing combine with the affordability may only deliver the desirable cosmopolitan approach. Blockchain Bridges are pretty new ideas, and they attract hackers. That fact did not surprise me at all. I remember me watching a lot of TV Westerns as a kid. All sorts and sizes of banks were robbed on regular basis. Case like that led to better security development and impacted bank organisational business model improvement.
I see the similarity of those events to the current robbing of blockchain bridges. By the way, you may be surprised to discover how much value people shifting from blockchain to blockchain. So, as the shifts happen – shit happens, even more often than sometimes. Usually, the price for early discovery and innovation is high, and that is perfectly normal.
To explore it further I developed a taste for more complex interoperability solutions. From Polkadot or Cosmos, to Axelar network recently. There are multiple types of sophisticated cross-chain solutions coming, including some available right now. As for example cross chain messaging protocols allow sending messages between smart contracts, so there is no need for assets to be moved.
Singular blockchains moving towards a homogeneous interoperability model. The heterogeneous digital ledgers will still need to connect somehow, like Wanchain or Celer for example. The list of solutions for interoperability is growing, as the safety of transfer for proposed ideas. At least in theory.
By the way again, are you aware of the fact that when you “transfer” an asset through the bridge from one BC to another – the asset is not moving? It is locked or burned in the primary chain and minted as a wrapped version on the second blockchain. Weird I know but getting even more weirder if you decide for some decent reason to move the asset back using a completely different path of a bridge to the primary blockchain.
No, worries to much everything will be OK and under control. The “state of weird” is a powerful innovation tool and the motor for clever blockchain developers.
Similarly, shifting your lovely NFT from one chain to another may create some sort of uncertainty and over-excitement problem. Weirdly but simply, your original NFT is securely locked on the source chain and re-minted as a duplicate on the new destination chain. All using so-called the lock-mint-burn-unlock protocol.
Super weird, I accept it and life goes on.
Also, NFT ID and associated metadata must be somehow transferred to make for certified authenticity and ownership of non-fungible tokens. Same time all “lege artis by blockchain law”!
To be honest, you must be a little bit crazy, a visioner, and a futurist to explore NFTs chain-crossing. At the same time be brave enough to deal with the complexity of different blockchains.
Pioneering is considered as a risky business, but it may generate a lot of fun as well. The fun is priceless, as is the excitement of early participating in life of blockchain. Sometimes you can be awarded, and the award may be big, sometime is only excitement.
Finally, coming back to the claustrophobia of non-interoperability, the problem is to serious, not to be noticed, highlighted, and solved. The mainstream adoption of decentralised ledger certainly will be based on cosmopolitan blockchains. At least IMO, maybe yours, and some others. Who like to be restrained and chain to one system or blockchain?
Anyway, now is the fun time, and the pleasure of the early discovery of blockchains, and the aftermath of transaction-risk-over-excitement is priceless!!!
Very soon everything may change and normalised. There will be two buttons only, the green button and the red button in your super KYC digital wallet!
Such safe as scary and so obvious that boring! In the name of minimising under-hood complexity and maximising surface simplicity …
So, enjoy your wild freedom and blockchain bonanza before mass adoption become a part of our daily struggle.
Whatever by using one chain, or more chains in the inter-connected space of blockchains!
Lastly, As Franky Falzoni said, “See you on the block mate!” 1(Wikipedia,2023).
References
Housos (2023) Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housos (Accessed: January 19, 2023).
Originally published at https://spektrumlab.io on January 23, 2023.