Crosschain TX’s On Expanse

Introduction

An exciting new concept has emerged and it promises to connect Expanse to the entire blockchain ecosystem as a whole. That concept is known as cross chain transactions. A cross chain transaction is when a user transfers the balance of a digital asset from one blockchain to another using some sort of transfer protocol.

Users generally need cross chain transactions if they want to extend the functionality of their digital assets but that functionality resides in a different network. For Expanse users, that means gaining access to some of the most popular applications on the market like Uniswap, Cryptokitties, and NFTs. And for Ethereum users it means access drastically lower fee’s on Expanse. Win. Win, win for everyone.

Our Journey

As part of the new development push at Expanse we decided to revisit some of our earliest ideas. One of those early ideas the founders and I would talk about extensively was a project called dendrite. Dendrite was a cross chain transfer protocol that expanded on the early concept of stable coins. A stable coin is essentially a tokenized 1:1 representation of an existing asset. In most cases those assets were fiat currencies or precious metals. We wanted to build a series of stable coins that represented other digital assets that would link expanse to every other blockchain.

As it turned out, we were just way to early. Neither the tooling nor the market existed for such a technology so history had other plans. Fast forward to today and as luck would have it the tooling not only exist but there is an ever increasing demand for it due in large part to the massive technological advancements in decentralized finance that lead to an explosion in growth.

With that explosion came a massive increase in network fee’s on the ethereum blockchain because up until recently that’s where most of the innovation in the space had taken place. Due to the interoperability between expanse and ethereum that puts us in a unique position to offset the high fees. By building bridges to and from the most congested networks and applications in the industry we can provide value to others while increasing our own utility.

Where We Are

Recently we have begun work on our own set of bridges by utilizing the open source project called from ChainSafeth called ChainBridge. ChainBridge right off the bad is nearly identical to the early designs of dendrite so it’s was intuitive to setup. It took our team just a few days to get a working bridge setup that allows us to transfer Expanse to and from the Ethereum Rinkeby testnet.

Explore the Expanse Bridge Here 

Where We Are Going

Over the next few weeks, months and years we will be connecting Expanse to all of the largest ecosystems and applications on the market. We will be keeping track of the changing market conditions and make it our number one priority to stay on the cutting edge, while maintaining the early ethos of blockchain technology. We want to not only add value to the established markets but help emerging markets forge their own path.

Where We Will End Up

As you can see, cross chain transactions are largely beneficial for the blockchain ecosystem as a whole. It allows smaller networks to interact with larger networks, and larger networks can take advantage of huge cost savings. We also know that while the current transfer protocols are amazing, they can use some improvement. In the future I’d like for us to take cross chain tx’s to an entirely new level by creating a p2p network of trustless relayers.

Going forward this new relayer network could no only transfer value between two networks but also facilitate frictionless onboarding, enhanced scalability with optimistic rollups and economic abstraction. It’s imperative to Expanse’s future that we continue what we started and do our best to make the world more interconnected. The future is borderless, and cross chain transactions will be essential to that future.