It’s only the beginning of the month, but chances are you’ve already had to send a few emails or sign up for a new website to tackle your monthly goals. Did you ever take a moment to appreciate the sheer technological marvel behind the ability to communicate seamlessly between different platforms? Probably not, but it’s worth considering.

While users face countless challenges with Web2, interoperability isn’t typically one of them. However, many individuals are now turning to the decentralized internet in an effort to fully own their online identity. Unfortunately, this shift can come with its own set of challenges, particularly in terms of scalability and interoperability.

If you’re interested in learning more about interoperability and why it’s such a tricky issue, keep reading. And as a bonus, we’ll even introduce you to a project that’s working to change the game and overcome these challenges.

So let’s dive right in!

WHAT IS INTEROPERABILITY, AND WHY DO BLOCKCHAINS STRUGGLE WITH IT?

Decentralized technology completely transformed the way we think about everything from businesses to finance. The removal of a central authority and the need for trust in transactions was groundbreaking. And as time has passed, numerous applications have emerged, from NFTs and DAOs to DeFi and even Web3.

However, when it comes to blockchain interoperability, the technology faces significant challenges. To understand why, it’s important to define interoperability and explain how blockchains work.

Interoperability refers to a blockchain’s ability to communicate with other blockchains and off-chain networks. While this may not sound like a significant issue, it becomes much more complicated when you consider how blockchains are built.

Blockchains are distributed databases or ledgers shared among a network of nodes and run by smart contracts. This setup makes transactions traceable, transparent, and irreversible. However, blockchains exist as isolated domains, unaware of the world outside, and as a result, cannot directly communicate with each other. Achieving interoperability involves identifying an appropriate middleware mechanism and process to integrate with another chain, which can often come at the cost of compromising security.

Furthermore, each platform has its own unique structures, consensus mechanisms, and governance systems, adding to the complexity of achieving interoperability. The consensus mechanism, which determines the accuracy of transactions, is only designed to work within the blockchain natively, making it difficult to verify transactions outside of the blockchain using existing rules.

These challenges have made achieving blockchain interoperability a significant obstacle, but efforts are underway to address this issue and enable greater communication and collaboration between blockchains.

To avoid compromising security or decentralization, an actual bridge between chains should satisfy three major criteria:

• Trustlessness: It maintains the same level of security as the base chain.

• Extensibility: It is usable across multiple chains.

• Data Agnostic: The bridge is compatible with many different blockchain networks and can transfer any type of data supported by chains.

All things considered, it is no surprise that blockchain bridges are hard to design. So, do we give up? Of course not.

Despite the difficulties and limitations, several bridges already exist that fit some of the listed criteria. Let’s discuss them.

CURRENT SOLUTIONS TO THE INTEROPERABILITY PROBLEM AND THEIR LIMITATIONS.

Daily, there are hundreds of seminars and panel discussions about the growth of the blockchain, and more than half are centered around interoperability.

This is because we estimate an exponential return in adoption if this problem is solved. In addition, smart contracts have revolutionized how individuals exchange value or engage in contractual agreements, but that is still less than 10% of their potential use cases. By achieving interoperability, smart contracts could draw information from other blockchains and off-chain networks, making them useful for a whole new range of applications like insurance, external payments and even real-world voting.

As we mentioned earlier, some blockchain bridges already exist. Below are some of the most popular networks tackling the interoperability problem:

1.Cosmos:

The Cosmos whitepaper was published in 2016, and since then, it’s been dubbed the ‘internet of blockchains’. This network was designed as an interoperable platform of open-source blockchains that uses hubs, the Tendermint consensus algorithm, and the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol to ensure that blockchains can communicate securely.

It achieves interoperability by offering open-source tools to developers and allowing them to build decentralized and sovereign blockchain applications called zones. Each zone, i.e. Cosmos smart contract, connects to another zone through hubs and can function autonomously, from authenticating accounts and transactions to creating and distributing new tokens and executing blockchain changes.

Cosmos is the first entirely free platform to enable interoperability between different systems, including Binance Chain, Terra and Crypto.org. However, Tendermint, its foundational consensus mechanism, has a relatively limited number of validators, so the network isn’t considered entirely decentralized.

2.Polkadot:

Polkadot was founded in 2016 by Gavin Wood as a cross-chain support solution which allows multiple chains to exchange data in parallel. It runs on a foundational layer known as the Relay Chain, which provides consensus and security and enables supported chains to communicate. This Relay Chain supports Parachains, which are sovereign blockchains that can have their own tokens and specific use cases, and Parathreads, their more economical alternative.

Polkadot provides seamless interoperability across multiple chains but still requires bridges to communicate with external ecosystems. This means that it fails on the criteria of extensibility and data agnostics. In addition, hackers have exploited its code vulnerabilities twice, draining millions of dollars before being stopped.

3.Chainlink:

Chainlink is a framework for building Decentralized Oracle Networks (DONs) that connect smart contracts to other blockchains and off-chain data. It runs on the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP), which provides a universal standard for developers to build secure services and applications that can initiate actions across multiple networks.

In addition to being an essential building block for DeFi, the LINK project helps connect blockchains to the traditional world of finance use cases such as payment gateways, financial agreements, and insurance, among others. This wide range of functionalities is why Chainlink has become the preferred oracle solution in the crypto market, feeding data into 170+ projects that collectively support approximately $15 billion in value.

Despite Chainlink’s inarguable success, its oracle network has just 332 nodes. This, and the growing complexity of attack vectors on the network, increase its vulnerability to security threats.

At this point, you understand the current progress on interoperability. Continue reading as we paint a picture of the interoperable future and your place in it.

THE INTEROPERABLE FUTURE

Now, imagine sitting on the couch after a long day, wanting to check the progress of your portfolio. You don’t stop to worry about the diverse coins you hold, knowing you can track everything from a single preferred wallet.

Maybe you are a trader. In this new age, you can trade NFTs across countless chains and transact on any network.

Later, you stumble across a musical festival ticket in the form of an NFT while scrolling one of the many decentralized social media and earning tokens for your comments. You invite a friend who has never used the blockchain, knowing there is now a seamless integration model from Web2 to Web3.

What about the possibilities in gaming? Imagine paying for tokens in one game and using them in a completely different one.

These scenarios are just some of the countless innovations that will gain traction once we unlock interoperability. Furthermore, markets and sectors that, on paper, may seem entirely separate will be able to transfer data and value more efficiently. Users will enjoy new products and solutions that are unfathomable to us simply by bringing together organizations and communities that wouldn’t typically interact.

As a result, the ineffective and cumbersome user experience associated with critical ecosystems will no longer exist, and global accessibility will be within reach.

WELCOME TO MATCH

For far too long, many people and teams on the blockchain have envisaged a one-chain-to-rule-them-all future. This makes them angry or jubilant when their perceived zero-sum competitors achieve success or when they experience hiccups, respectively.

At Match, we have never agreed with that notion. Instead, our mission is to deliver an open-source public chain that supports the Web3 era. The central message of our system is innovation and cooperation over competition.

Match utilizes Cosmos’s inter-blockchain communication (IBC) layer to facilitate a smooth user experience between different blockchains and to connect the EVM and Move-VM-based ecosystems.

Following this, we improve the global accessibility of blockchains and their native applications while allowing for a healthier and more robust inflow of users to quality decentralised applications (DApps) and networks. We also provide a smooth onboarding process which facilitates adoption.

By using our network, end users won’t be trapped between different blockchain paradigms but can use any specific blockchain they wish, anytime, anywhere, effortlessly and fluidly!

If this future excites you and you cannot wait to enjoy our services, head over to Matchain.io. Let us thrive together!

For more information on Match, visit the links below.

Website | DevDoc | Twitter | Discord | Telegram | Medium | Mirror | Reddit