The road to a breakthrough for cross-chain bridges: A detailed analysis of the four little dragons of chain abstraction

Author: NingNing, independent researcher Source: X, @0xNing0x

From the perspective of LP (liquidity provider), cross-chain bridge can be seen as a special case of DEX.

According to Defillama data, the current TVL of the DEX sector is $19.983b, Volume (24h) is $6.918b, and Fees (24h)$8.01m, while the current TVL of the cross-chain bridge sector is $23.128b, Volume (24h) is $260,156, and Fees (24h)$8,642.

This shows how poor the capital efficiency and protocol income of the cross-chain bridge are. Moreover, because there has been a rumor in the market that there are airdrop bonuses for cross-chain through official bridges, the survival space of third-party bridges in the cross-chain bridge field has also been squeezed by L1 and L2 official bridges.

Therefore, chain abstraction has become a life-saving straw for cross-chain bridges to find a way out.

What is the difference between chain abstraction and cross-chain bridges?

First, the chain abstraction protocol will provide Dapp developers with a unified multi-chain deployment SDK, allowing them to conveniently develop multi-chain Dapps without the need for debugging and deployment of one by one. Some chain abstraction protocols will also provide a unified full-chain asset standard. Such as Layerzero, Connext and Omni Network.

Second, the chain abstraction protocol eliminates the complex operation of users managing multiple chains.

Omni Network, Cycle Network, Initia, and Polymer can be called the four little dragons of chain abstraction. Unlike previous chain abstraction projects, they do not introduce weak consensus systems as relay layers, but achieve cross-domain interoperability (chains and Rollups are collectively referred to as domains) and chain abstraction with minimal trust assumptions through a new paradigm of shared security.

Let's introduce Omni Network, Cycle Network, Initia, and Polymer in order.

Omni Network

Omni Network is a Rollup interoperability protocol built using the economic security and modular paradigm of Restaking. Its main goal is to address the trend of asset and user silos in the Ethereum ecosystem RollAPP, and provide developers and users with a more convenient application access channel.

The main features of Omni Network include:

• Unified Rollup Integration: Omni Network fixes the fragmentation problem caused by Rollup by integrating all Rollups to form a coherent and interoperable network.

• Performance: Omni Network provides a bridge between the L1 settlement layer and L2 isolated Rollups.

• Developer Support: Omni Network enables developers to write global applications that can span the entire Ethereum Rollup ecosystem. Asset issuers can upgrade their tokens to benefit from the global liquidity and application integrations available across all Rollups.

• Cross-Rollup Communication: Omni Network makes it easier for users to interact between different networks through fast, low-cost cross-Rollup communication between L2 networks. When a user conducts a transaction on a protocol that integrates Omni, the Omni validator is responsible for transmitting messages from one Rollup to another Rollup, and the user can then access all crypto assets distributed across different networks at the same time.

• Security: The underlying security of Omni Network is still built on the Ethereum mainnet.

Cycle Network

Cycle Network is a trustless, full-chain distributed ledger that uses Omni State Channel Indexer (OSCI) and Trustless Cross Chain Protocol (TCCP) to build Omni Distributed Ledger (ODL) to accelerate the arrival of an era centered on decentralized applications.

Here are the main features of Cycle Network:

• Full-chain distributed ledger: Cycle Network can view the global state view of all blockchains and build a full-chain world state that includes all blockchains.

• Rollup+Extended DA technology: Cycle Network uses Rollup+Extended DA technology to achieve native trustless interoperability and solve the problem of cross-domain fragmentation of DApps.

• Developer Support: Cycle Network helps developers build full-chain DApps in different ecosystems. Developers can seamlessly access data and users across the entire blockchain landscape, allowing them to focus on innovating dApps and designing superior products to serve all current and future crypto users.

• User-centric: Cycle Network allows application developers to avoid multi-chain contract deployment, and end users are unaware of cross-chain. This frees developers from the tedious details of layer deployment, and users from the complexity of multi-chain concepts.

Initia is a Layer 1 (L1) network based on Cosmos that uses an application-specific Layer 2 (L2)12 of Optimistic Rollups. Here are the main architectural features of Initia:

Initia

L1 Base Chain: Initia is an L1 network built within the Cosmos ecosystem.

L2 Application Chains: These are called "Minitias" and are a vital part of building on the Initia platform.

Communication Layer: Initia leverages Cosmos's IBC protocol to achieve interoperability between its L2 and other blockchains within the Cosmos ecosystem.

Cosmos SDK: Initia uses the Cosmos SDK, a framework for building blockchain applications in an efficient and modular way.

Celestia and Modular Architecture: Initia’s approach of leveraging Celestia’s modular Data Availability (DA) layer is consistent with Cosmos’ philosophy of interoperability and scalability.

MoveVM Integration: Initia uses MoveVM, which is known for its integration with Cosmos’ Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol.

Overall, Initia’s architecture, which includes L1, L2, and communication layers, is designed to remove the complexity encountered in traditional modular and multi-chain systems. This makes it easy for developers to launch application-specific blockchains built on Initia L2 without having to understand complex chain-level infrastructure or run a validator set.

Initia’s goal is to provide an infrastructure that unifies different types of applications, promotes ease of development, and fosters ecosystem growth.

Initia is deeply integrated with the Cosmos ecosystem, leveraging its technology stack, interoperability principles, and shared security model to build a 0 to 1 full-link Rollup platform.

Polymer

Polymer is a project focused on L2 cross-chain on Ethereum. Its architecture mainly consists of the following parts:

• Settlement layer: Polymer uses OP Stack to build its settlement layer because of its scalability, flexibility, high performance, and security consistency with Ethereum.

• Execution layer: Polymer's execution layer is connected by Cosmos SDK for connected Rollups and IBC interoperability.

• Data availability: Polymer's data availability is provided by EigenDA, and the security of EigenDA is second only to Ethereum DA.

• Proof process: In the proof process, Polymer is provided by OP Stack modular fault proofs as well as interactive fraud and ZK validity proofs.

The characteristic of Polymer is that it focuses on meeting the interoperability requirements of applications on other Rollups rather than executing decentralized applications themselves. In addition, Polymer completely outsources the transport layer and partially outsources the state layer. The IBC transport layer runs on Polymer, while the IBC application layer runs on chains that support IBC.

In short, the above four chain abstractions are basically built using modular solutions. They need both the security (Ethereum DA, EigenDA, AVS, etc.) and rich resources of the Ethereum ecosystem, and the interoperability of the Cosmos ecosystem IBC.