How is Layer 2 interoperability achieved? The Vector solution is officially launched on the testnet
Editor's Note: This article comes fromBabbitt Information (ID: bitcoin8btc), compiled by: Kyle, published with permission.
Editor's Note: This article comes from
Babbitt Information (ID: bitcoin8btc)
, compiled by: Kyle, published with permission.
Blockchain is moving towards a world of multi-chain coexistence, how do we allow users to seamlessly transfer value across chains and interact with contracts? For the Ethereum L2 chain, this problem is even more serious. Vector (the next iteration of Connext) offers a solution, creating a shared routing layer that provides an Internet (especially TCP/IP) like experience.
Problems facing the multi-chain worldEthereumNo matter how you feel about the future of this ecosystem (Rollup-centric Ethereum, sharded Eth2, or many decentralized L1 chains), it is clear that we are moving towards a multi-chain world.
L2 <>This presents an interesting new challenge for UX — specifically, how do you allow users to seamlessly transfer value across chains and interact with contracts? for
Ethereum
The problem is exacerbated for L2 chains, many of which typically require an exit window of at least a few hours to transfer funds back to L1.
A Shared Routing Layer
State channels are completely different from chain-based L2 solutions like Rollup, plasma or sidechains. A channel network is not a single shared state (i.e. blockchain) that everyone agrees on and verifies, but a collection of two-party agreements between different nodes.
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Payments travel from left to right through routers in the network
The similarities to the internet (especially TCP/IP) don't stop there. The Internet Protocol is a shared communications standard that routes data between discrete subnetworks—many of which may be running their own protocols internally. Likewise, transmissions in a channel network may be routed through channels running on entirely different chains!
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Routers can spread payments through liquidity across different assets and even across chains!
In other words, by making Connext nodes chain-agnostic and allowing them to open channels on many chains simultaneously, we create:
"A simple shared communication protocol (just like TCP/IP) that instantly routes value between any discrete L2 or L1 chain!"
Lessons learned from Spacefold
Back in August, we decided to explore this new vision for Connext as part of a submission to the Reddit Scalability Bake-off. We built Spacefold to demonstrate how to use Connext state channels to instantly transfer assets between the Rinkeby, Kovan, xDai, Matic, Optimism, SKALE, and Arbitrum testnets.
Vector
The goal of this demo is to learn more about the user flows that need to be underpinned and to evaluate the usefulness of the routing layer for L2. We've been blown away by the community's response since.
Spacefold was our first step - building a horrible, non-scalable UI on top of the old Indra nodes we used to validate hypotheses. Since then, we have been working on an updated version of Connext that can bring reliable cross-chain interoperability to any dApp or protocol with minimal integration effort.
After months of hard work and tight iteration cycles with our customers, we're excited to share with you that what we've built is now ready for Testnet integration!
This new protocol, which we call Vector, has the following characteristics:
Conditional branches of arbitrary generality can be routed through one (eventually multiple) intermediate routing nodes.
Instant cross-chain and cross-asset transfers/communications. All EVM-compatible chains can be run.
Plugging supports non-EVM Turing-complete chains (including zkRollups).
Native end-to-end gas abstraction for end users.
what's next?
It's also very simple - the entire core off-chain protocol is at least 2,500 lines of code. This means that building on top of it is much easier and more stable than indra.
You can check out this implementation in the main Vector repository. We also have developer documentation in the works to help you make your own.
what's next?
Solving this issue is critical to getting fully functional and user-friendly dApps on L2, so we will connect Vector to mainnet as quickly as possible. Next, we focus on some key tasks:
