UPDATED Treasury Proposal - Open Source EVM+Substrate NFT Bridges
Vision for this proposal
The world is being tokenized and assets of all kinds will soon be tokenized and traded as NFTs. We need a standard and infrastructure to migrate and track the ownership of NFTs across universes (blockchains, parachains, video games, private databases...). We believe in Polkadot's vision of an internet of blockchains, and we want to promote the prosperity of the Polkadot ecosystem. Building the infrastructure to migrate NFTs across universes will help make Polkadot into the center of the NFT world.
Web3 Grant for NFT Migration Protocol
With the support of the web3 Foundation, we have been drafting a protocol for NFT migration in which we have separated the concept of bridge and the concept of relay. This is important because in existing bridges, the relay is integrated and exclusive and what people call “bridge” is usually mostly the “relay” part of the migration infrastructure. In our model, the bridge only acts as an escrow and messaging service, whilst relays are responsible for the state transmission. There can be infinite amounts of relays on a given bridge, and the token creators and token owners can choose which relay they trust to perform the migration if their NFT. Thanks to this architecture, there needs to only be one bridge per universe, and only as many endpoints as the number of universes to migrate to. The bridge itself is fully decentralized and trustless, and anyone is free to create a relay with its own trust mechanism to perform migrations using that bridge. Users don’t need to trust the bridge, only the relay which they can choose.
Scope
As the NFT migration standard is almost complete, we now want to start the work on implementing bridges based on that standard, as well as the tools for others to build bridges. We are asking for help from the Treasury to do that.
These bridges will all be open-source, opinionless and work for any kind of NFTs without restrictions. Our plan is to first implement bridges (modules) for EVM<>EVM migration, because they can be operational already (for example to do a Ropsten<>Ethereum Mainnet migration). Once built, any new bridge built (following the standard) in any universe will be able to migrate NFTs to and from any other existing bridges that follow the standard. We will create a Subrastre module for the bridge so that any parachain using it will be able to receive and send NFTs to and from any universe which has a bridge. We will also do an Ink! implementation of the bridge for chains that do not want to use the substrate module, a web interface, documentation and security audit.
The bridge will follow the specifications and standard of the NFT migration protocol. The exact specifications of the bridge are not yet known as this project is an experiment and exact interface may vary from the current version of the standard.
Full Proposal
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aoLAW6JjX2LzjDlzs_3I99aq2FcKywjdBv444CxCUu4/edit?usp=sharing
Comments (20)
Comments (20)
Few questions:
- Why are you applying for Polkadot treasury instead of applying for new web3 grant?
- Where is the code? I can maybe google it but it should be in the proposal especially it builds upon your existing work.
- Why should treasury fund 100% of the development cost?
- What exactly is EVM NFT bridge? How is it different than an Ethereum bridge? We have already few teams building Ethereum bridges and why you need to build your own one?
- How does it work? It will be helpful if you have some basic explanation in the proposal and link to detailed documentation.
Thanks for your questions @xlc ! See below.
Why are you applying for Polkadot treasury instead of applying for new web3 grant?
This proposal focuses on the actual deployment of the bridge on Polkadot itself. We are already working on a web3 grant which aims to standardise cross-chain NFT migration and data exchange. See the work in progress on the protocol here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c5Uor2By5igFWXimipcKhsWjTAG8OWrl9bSVWTPsi6U/edit?usp=sharing
Where is the code? I can maybe google it but it should be in the proposal especially it builds upon your existing work.
The bridge specifications are currently being drafted, as explained above. The Web3 grant is a generic standard that is related to NFT and blockchains in general, thePolkadot Treasury grant is the implementation of that standard and the running of bridges and relays on the polkadot ecosystem.
Why should treasury fund 100% of the development cost?
This treasury proposal focuses specifically on the deployment of the bridge on Polkadot, which is entirely open source. There are other development work outside of this proposal which have not been included. Furthermore, this development will be very beneficial for the Polkadot ecosystem.
What exactly is EVM NFT bridge? How is it different than an Ethereum bridge? We have already few teams building Ethereum bridges and why you need to build your own one?
The bridges currently under development are not suitable for NFTs. The short version is that non-fungible token owners cannot trust a relay the same way fungible tokens do. For the longer version, please read section 4 of “A Protocol for NFT Migration” (page 9) here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c5Uor2By5igFWXimipcKhsWjTAG8OWrl9bSVWTPsi6U/edit?usp=sharing
How does it work? It will be helpful if you have some basic explanation in the proposal and link to detailed documentation.
The exact way the bridge will be finalized with the work we are currently doing with the web3 Foundation. We have been getting feedback/contributions from the community on the protocol for a few weeks now and we are at the review stage. Once finalised, we will have a standard for building bridges that anyone can use in any universe to build bridges and relays on these bridges.
This is where the treasury proposal work begins. The proposal includes substrate pallets so that any parachain can have them, and we also want to create ink! Bridges on parachain supporting smart contracts but that do not want to have NFT bridge features as a module.
Few questions:
Thanks for your questions @xlc ! See below.
Why are you applying for Polkadot treasury instead of applying for new web3 grant?
This proposal focuses on the actual deployment of the bridge on Polkadot itself. We are already working on a web3 grant which aims to standardise cross-chain NFT migration and data exchange. See the work in progress on the protocol here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c5Uor2By5igFWXimipcKhsWjTAG8OWrl9bSVWTPsi6U/edit?usp=sharing
Where is the code? I can maybe google it but it should be in the proposal especially it builds upon your existing work.
The bridge specifications are currently being drafted, as explained above. The Web3 grant is a generic standard that is related to NFT and blockchains in general, thePolkadot Treasury grant is the implementation of that standard and the running of bridges and relays on the polkadot ecosystem.
Why should treasury fund 100% of the development cost?
This treasury proposal focuses specifically on the deployment of the bridge on Polkadot, which is entirely open source. There are other development work outside of this proposal which have not been included. Furthermore, this development will be very beneficial for the Polkadot ecosystem.
What exactly is EVM NFT bridge? How is it different than an Ethereum bridge? We have already few teams building Ethereum bridges and why you need to build your own one?
The bridges currently under development are not suitable for NFTs. The short version is that non-fungible token owners cannot trust a relay the same way fungible tokens do. For the longer version, please read section 4 of “A Protocol for NFT Migration” (page 9) here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c5Uor2By5igFWXimipcKhsWjTAG8OWrl9bSVWTPsi6U/edit?usp=sharing
How does it work? It will be helpful if you have some basic explanation in the proposal and link to detailed documentation.
The exact way the bridge will be finalized with the work we are currently doing with the web3 Foundation. We have been getting feedback/contributions from the community on the protocol for a few weeks now and we are at the review stage. Once finalised, we will have a standard for building bridges that anyone can use in any universe to build bridges and relays on these bridges.
This is where the treasury proposal work begins. The proposal includes substrate pallets so that any parachain can have them, and we also want to create ink! Bridges on parachain supporting smart contracts but that do not want to have NFT bridge features as a module.