Abstract
Blockchain technology has brought about a revolutionary transformation in multiple industries by introducing decentralized and immutable systems.
It functions as a shared and unchangeable ledger that simplifies the recording of transactions and tracking of assets within a business network.
This innovation has significantly reduced risks and lowered costs for all participants involved.
Nevertheless, the widespread adoption of various public permissionless blockchains, which enable anyone with internet access to participate, has created a demand for interoperability.
This technical report delves into the concept of blockchain interoperability, emphasizing its significance, challenges, and potential solutions.
It offers a comprehensive overview of different approaches to achieving interoperability and explores their respective advantages and limitations.
Introduction
Blockchain interoperability refers to the ability of different blockchain networks to communicate and exchange data seamlessly. Several factors necessitate the existence of multiple blockchains, including:
- The need to promote competition, which in turn drives innovation and the development of better technologies.
- Showcasing the product of developers thinking creatively and exploring the capabilities of blockchain technology.
- Acknowledging the fact that there is no perfect solution that can cater to all the diverse needs of blockchain simultaneously.
- Demonstrating that each blockchain performs different sets of transactions and handles varying amounts of data processing and their unique functionalities.
- Ensuring the transfer of value (coins) within a particular blockchain using consistent data and value across different networks, as they operate using different protocols.
- Identifying their roles in systems like decentralized finance (DeFi), where being limited to a single blockchain would restrict the available options for services offered by different projects.
As the number of blockchain platforms continues to grow, the lack of interoperability hinders, among other things, the potential of decentralized applications (dApps) — digital programs or applications that function autonomously on a decentralized network instead of relying on a single computer or server, often using smart contracts to execute their operations seamlessly.
Blockchains communicating seamlessly is also essential to the Metaverse. This restricts their adoption. Interoperability seeks to address that by enabling cross-chain transactions, asset transfers, and communication between various blockchain networks.
Importance of Interoperability
Enhanced functionality: Interoperability allows dApps, for example, to access and utilize functionalities and assets from multiple blockchains, thus expanding their capabilities.
Scalability: Interconnected blockchains can collectively handle higher transaction volumes and provide a more scalable infrastructure for blockchain projects based on their proposed use cases.
Asset transfers: The ability of projects on different networks to be able to "talk" to each other enables the transfer of digital assets, such as cryptocurrencies or tokens, across different blockchains to foster liquidity and improve user experience.
Collaboration: When blockchains are linkable, it encourages collaboration between projects, thus fostering innovation and ecosystem growth.
Some Challenges in Achieving Interoperability
Consensus mechanisms: Different blockchain platforms employ diverse consensus mechanisms, such as Proof of Work (PoW), Proof of Stake (PoS), and Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS), among others, which all follow varying methods of authenticating transactions. These differences make cross-chain communication and validation challenging.
Smart contract compatibility: The difference in the programming languages used in writing smart contracts or the difference in the virtual machines upon which they are based is another challenge.
The variances may prevent the various blockchains from being directly compatible, as they may require translation or adaptation for interoperability.
Network security: Considering their structures, interoperability could pose potential security risks as vulnerabilities in one blockchain network may impact others.
Governance and standardization: The need for standardized protocols and governance models for the process of getting blockchains to talk to each other creates coordination and decision-making challenges.
The speed of confirmation in blockchains depends on the validation process within the network, which can vary depending on the network's model.
This poses a challenge for achieving interoperability as coordinating between different networks becomes difficult without a form of standardization.
Interoperability Approaches
Some of the approaches to making different public blockchains connect with one another include Cross-Chain Communication protocols to facilitate the exchange of information.
Examples include Polkadot's XCMP (Cross-Chain Message Passing) and Cosmos' Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol.
There is also the use of sidechains, which are separate blockchains connected to a main blockchain that allow the communication of information and the transfer of assets between them.
The use of pegged assets in this instance represents the value of assets on one blockchain in another blockchain.
Atomic swaps enable the peer-to-peer exchange of assets between two (or more) participants from different blockchain networks without the need for intermediaries, while oracles provide external data to smart contracts to enable interoperability by incorporating real-world data into different blockchains.
Lastly, middleware solutions are offered by platforms that act as intermediaries, thus translating and facilitating communication between different blockchains.
As explained above, achieving blockchain interoperability comes with several advantages for the ecosystem. These include (but are not limited to):
- Enhancing functionality and capabilities through cross-chain interactions.
- Improved scalability and transaction throughput across interconnected blockchains.
- Increased liquidity and asset transfer possibilities.
- Fostered collaboration and innovation in the blockchain ecosystem.
It has its limitations as well. They include that interoperability:
- Poses security risks as interconnected networks are linked.
- Compatibility issues may arise between different consensus mechanisms and smart contract languages (since they are usually different).
- The lack of standardized protocols and governance models prevents networks from having a uniform approach to their interconnectedness.
- There are also performance and latency concerns in cross-chain transactions.
Conclusion
Blockchain interoperability is crucial for realizing the full potential of dApps and expanding the blockchain ecosystem. However, it is faced with several challenges that limit its growth.
Despite the challenges, various approaches continue to be developed to achieve interoperability which, as technology advances and standards emerge, is expected to have solutions that will play a vital role in creating a connected and efficient blockchain landscape.