Since
the
advent
of
Bitcoin
in
2009
and
the
explosion
of
innovation
that
followed,
the
web3
industry
has
faced
many
challenges.
Beyond
dealing
with
regulators,
improving
UX,
and
weeding
out
bad
actors,
blockchain
engineers
continue
to
tackle
two
major
hurdles:
scalability
and
interoperability.
While
many
Layer
2s
are
working
to
scale
Layer
1s
like
Bitcoin
and
Ethereum
by
improving
throughput
and
reducing
transaction
fees,
protocols
like
Union
enable
both—interoperability
at
scale.
The
need
for
blockchain
interoperability
Whatever
your
opinion
on
the
WEF,
its
2020
whitepaper
on
blockchain
interoperability
hit
the
nail
when
it
stated,
“Organisations
do
not
want
to
find
themselves
on
a
blockchain
platform
that
may
limit
their
options
for
external
collaboration
in
the
future.”
To
elaborate
further
on
that
point,
imagine
having
a
Gmail
account,
sending
a
message
to
a
Yahoo
account,
and
being
unable
to
exchange
communications.
The
internet
was
able
to
develop
as
quickly
as
it
did
because
it
factored
in
interoperability
from
the
early
days,
and
blockchains
must
do
the
same.
A
notable
player
in
the
interoperability
space
is
Cosmos,
whose
flagship
Inter-Blockchain
Communication
(IBC)
protocol
has
enabled
a
host
of
sovereign
chains
to
connect,
transact,
exchange,
swap
tokens,
and
perform
other
actions
without
compromising
sovereignty.
Map
of
Zones
shows
91
zones
now
connected
via
IBC
transacting
more
than
$2.1
billion
over
the
last
30
days
in
more
than
8.7
million
transactions.
IBC
isn’t
limited
to
Cosmos
chains,
either.
The
trustless
interoperability
protocol
has
broadened
its
scope
to
include
EVM-compatible
chains
such
as
Ethereum,
Polygon,
and
Avalanche.
However,
most
bridging
solutions
so
far
have
been
offered
by
centralized
providers,
meaning
users
must
trust
the
bridging
protocol.
Built
and
backed
by
Composable
Finance,
Consensys,
Tokensoft,
and
Polygon
Labs,
Union
provides
a
permissionless
bridging
protocol
that
connects
modular
blockchains
and
rollups
trustlessly,
without
depending
on
trusted
third
parties,
oracles,
multi-signatures,
or
MPC,
using
advanced
zero-knowledge
(ZK)
cryptography.
Already
connecting
several
ecosystems,
Union
recently
announced
a
partnership
with
L2
developer
Polygon
Labs
that
will
tap
into
Polygon’s
AggLayer
“to
facilitate
message
passing
and
asset
transfers
between
the
Polygon
ecosystem
and
IBC-enabled
chains,”
bridging
two
of
the
largest
blockchain
ecosystems:
Polygon
and
Cosmos.
Permissionlessly
bridging
Polygon,
Cosmos,
and
beyond
Union
founder
and
prior
CTO
at
Composable
Finance
Karel
Kubat
told
CryptoSlate,
“It’s
not
just
a
Cosmos
to
Polygon
bridge
but
anything
that’s
IBC-enabled,
which
includes
Scroll,
and
soon
Arbitrum,
Berrachain,
Movement
Labs,
M2…
They
can
build
and
connect
into
the
Agglayer
using
Union,”
permissionlessly
tapping
into
the
liquidity
of
one
of
the
largest
blockchain
Layer
1s,
Ethereum.
“Right
now
it’s
very
interesting
because
we
have
big
L1
ecosystems
that
really
only
have
permissioned
centralized
bridges
or
something
in
between.
You
need
to
go
to
the
bridge
provider
to
get
support
for
a
small
ecosystem.
What
Union
does,
is
if
you’re
building
a
new
Cosmos
chain
or
a
new
rollup
that’s
IBC
enabled,
you
don’t
need
to
go
to
a
centralized
provider
to
get
support.
You
just
open
the
connection
to
Ethereum
and
you’re
done…
So
we’re
going
quite
quickly
from
a
world
with
only
200
to
300
ecosystems
to
a
world
with
thousands
and
thousands.”
This
type
of
seamless
interoperability
isn’t
possible
with
centralized
solutions
because
the
“wait
queue”
is
too
long.
Every
chain
wanting
to
connect
needs
to
request
the
bridging
protocol’s
permission.
With
Union,
chains
can
permissionlessly
open
a
channel
with
Ethereum,
enabling
a
seamlessly
interconnected
future…
of
potentially
millions
of
chains.
Karel
gives
the
example
of
dYdX,
one
of
the
largest
decentralized
exchanges
that
began
as
a
smart
contract
on
Ethereum
and
moved
ecosystems
to
become
a
sovereign
Cosmos
app
chain.
“We
all
went
into
crypto
for
sovereignty,”
he
says.
“Any
successful
smart
contract
is
contemplating
going
to
their
own
L2
or
app
chain.”
This
means
the
total
addressable
market
for
Union
is
potentially
vast.
“It
isn’t
anyone
that
wants
to
build
a
blockchain.
It’s
any
existing
app
on
Ethereum
and
Solana
that
could
benefit
from
making
this
move.”
Union’s
IBC
to
Polygon
bridge
should
be
completed
by
the
end
of
this
year
and
you
can
keep
up
with
the
latest
developments
by
following
Union
on
X.
Mentioned
in
this
article
Go to Source
Author: Christina Comben
