What is ZetaChain? What is ZETA? The people who make up Zetachain?

What is ZetaChain?

ZetaChain is the foundational, public blockchain that enables omnichain, generic smart contracts and messaging between any blockchain. It solves the problems of “cross-chain” and “multi-chain” and aims to open the crypto and global financial ecosystem to anyone. ZetaChain envisions and supports a truly fluid, multi-chain crypto ecosystem, where users and developers can move between and appreciate the benefits of any blockchain: payments, DeFi, liquidity, games, art, social graphs, performance, security, privacy, and so on.

Zetachain’s highlights

• Decentralized and public: A decentralised and open blockchain network called ZetaChain. It is based on Tendermint Consensus and Cosmos SDK. ZetaChain is a Proof-of-Stake blockchain where all transactions and activity on the platform — even cross-chain transactions — are fully transparent, verifiable, and operate in a trust-minimized manner. In contrast to many cross-chain solutions like bridges, which have varying, frequently centralised trust models and a history of being vulnerable to exploits and hacks.
• Hyper-connected nodes: Observers on ZetaChain nodes keep track of transactions on all linked chains. The network may sign and validate transactions on any linked chain as a wallet by using ZetaChain’s TSS design. These hyper-connected nodes offer a seamless omnichain environment for developers to create cutting-edge and potent cross-chain apps on top of by enabling safe, decentralised reading and writing to connected chains.
• Omnichain message passing: With just a few function calls, a developer may transmit messages (data + value) between chains and levels. A dApp developer may create robust cross-chain apps using message passing by adding a few simple methods to their current smart contracts.
• Omnichain smart contracts: ZetaChain allows the native deployment of smart contracts that can read from and write to linked chains. The first public blockchain that supports smart contracts with this functionality is ZetaChain, which has led to a shift in how apps are developed.
• Managed external assets: The network of ZetaChain and the dApps created on top of it can handle the assets and vaults of other linked chains. This makes it possible to manage assets on any chain in the same way that a smart contract on a single chain can manage assets on that chain. Thus, a dApp running on ZetaChain may coordinate and introduce smart contract logic to any chain that is linked. All chains, even non-smart-contract chains like Bitcoin and Dogecoin, are subject to this characteristic.
• No wrapping of assets or bridges are needed to transfer values cross-chain

What is ZETA?

ZetaChain’s coin ZETA is used to pay the gas fees for ZetaChain smart contracts and additionally used to secure the PoS ZetaChain blockchain by bonding/staking/slashing. ZETA is also at the core of ZetaChain’s cross-chain transfer, swaps, message delivery, and security. ZETA is one of the first multi-chain coins that is natively issued across multiple chains and layers.

Users can directly move the ZETA coin from any chain A to chain B. The mechanism is a one way peg (i.e. burning X amount on chain A and then minting X amount on chain B).

We use our own coin ZETA to represent value cross-chain because:

• Unlike the more common two-way pegging, there is no wrapping and therefore no multiple representation of the same underlying asset.
• The only (native) value that can go cross-chain is via the ZETA coin, which reduces attack surface substantially, resulting in an easier to understand audit and therefore higher security. For example, we can check total supply at the contract mint site.
• Users can pay ZETA for the cross-chain service that ZetaChain provides, and for gas on the destination chain, in a single step/bundle.

The people who make up Zetachain?

A Team Led by Ex-Coinbase and BAT Uses ZetaChain To Establish Bridgeless Omnichain Interoperability

All smart contract protocols, as well as Bitcoin and Dogecoin, will be connected through ZetaChain.

ZetaChain, a foundational blockchain protocol designed to connect all blockchains into one cohesive, interoperable environment, the close of an initial seed funding round which includes investments from early Coinbase and Binance employees including Dan Romero, Sam Rosenblum, and John Yi, as well major contributors to some of the industry’s most widely adopted protocols and well known funds, including Polygon’s JD Kanani and HwiSang Kim former CIO of Hashed; advisors on the project include Nathalie McGrath, who, as Coinbase’s first Head of People, scaled the industry leading exchange from a team of just 10 to over 800 employees, and Juan Suarez, who served as in-house counsel for Coinbase from 2013 until 2022. Ramping up to a mainnet launch Q1 2023, ZetaChain’s ‘omnichain’ approach will mean that existing smart contracts and dApps will only require a few additional lines of code in order to function as ‘omnichain-dApps’, or “odApps”, capable of interacting with all blockchains at a native level — all while avoiding the need to wrap or bridge any assets.

The interoperability of Web3 is a problem. Each blockchain environment or cross-chain interaction requires an understanding of specific, bespoke solutions, user interfaces, or pertinent cross-chain compatible pairs. Cross-chain solutions, such as bridges, are currently dependent on token wrapping and are risky and time-consuming due to their interdependence. The exploit on blockchain bridge Wormhole, where hackers stole $320 million, has raised awareness of the ongoing challenges faced by the increasingly segmented blockchain industry. Important industry thought leaders, including Vitalik Buterin, have spoken out against bridges that “wrap” assets and the risks posed by the inherently fragmented “cross-chain” approaches used today.

“With ZetaChain, there is no need for wrapped assets or bridges for every pair of blockchains to transmit value across. It became clear that a novel omnichain approach was required to outset the risks of asset fragmentation, reduce the risks of 51% attacks, and improve the developer experience overall after speaking with exchanges dealing with multichain integrations on a significant scale and testing centralised and decentralised cross-chain strategies, according to a lead contributor to the ZetaChain protocol who has done foundational work on Brave Browser and the Basic Attention Token ($BAT) as well as lead work on the protocol.

ZetaChain, a protocol built on the Cosmos SDK and using the Tendermint Consensus mechanism, will progressively switch from Proof-of-Authority to Proof-of-Stake consensus. The ZetaChain team is primarily concerned with providing the best developer experience, with the aim of making developing on the ZetaChain protocol a straightforward and relaxing experience for developers who are accustomed to working on other platforms.

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