Datachain Receives Grant from Interchain Foundation to Enhance IBC-Solidity for Production Use
Datachain has received a grant from the Interchain Foundation, an organization dedicated to fostering the growth of the Interchain ecosystem, a highly popular blockchain network built upon the Interchain stack, and connected by the trust-minimized Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol.
This is the second time the team will receive a grant from the Interchain Foundation. This follows their initial selection in October 2021, which was the first of its kind in Japan. The fact that Datachain has been selected for a second grant is a testament to the high quality of work and value that the team is providing to the Interchain community.
With this grant, Datachain will work on improving the functionality of “IBC-Solidity,” the Solidity implementation of the IBC protocol, which connects some of the most highly used blockchains in the world.
Datachain’s effort will enable high security with minimal trust assumptions on Ethereum, EVM-compatible blockchains, and Enterprise Ethereum (Hyperledger Besu, GoQuorum) via interoperability with IBC. This project will be a significant step towards enhancing the overall safety and trustworthiness of interoperability among Ethereum-based blockchains, one of the most popular blockchain ecosystems in the world.
Past Efforts
Since its initial grant in October 2021, Datachain has been committed to advancing interoperability by promoting the adoption of the IBC protocol. As a crucial element of this effort, the team has been focused on intensive research and development to enhance IBC-Solidity implementation. Through this work, Datachain is contributing to the overall growth and success of the Interchain network, while also driving innovation in the field of decentralized technologies.
The YUI project, granted to the Hyperledger Foundation, is aimed at making IBC available on blockchains other than those that use Tendermint or CometBFT (the consensus algorithms at the heart of the Cosmos ecosystem). This effort includes developing modules that support various ledgers such as Hyperledger Fabric, Corda, Hyperledger Besu, and the Solidity implementation of IBC known as “IBC-Solidity.”
This development is progressing in collaboration with the IBC community and core teams. These efforts are expected to contribute significantly to secure and reliable interoperability between various blockchains.
Grant Scope
Datachain utilizes the funding from the Interchain Foundation to develop the following feature enhancements and improvements with the aim of production-level utilization of IBC-Solidity:
Main enhancements:
- Enable BEEFY/GRANDPA light client support (ICS-02 client specs and review of implementation)
https://github.com/hyperledger-labs/yui-ibc-solidity/pull/115 - Re-architecture for gas efficiency and readability
https://github.com/hyperledger-labs/yui-ibc-solidity/pull/130
The following table is a summary of the results of gas cost reduction.
Other enhancements:
- Support for generic verification function (ICS-02)
https://github.com/hyperledger-labs/yui-ibc-solidity/pull/126 - Compliant to commitment path (ICS-23)
https://github.com/hyperledger-labs/yui-ibc-solidity/pull/126 - Relax on contract size limitation for ICS-04
https://github.com/hyperledger-labs/yui-ibc-solidity/pull/150 - ICS-02: Add verifyNonMembership support:
https://github.com/hyperledger-labs/yui-ibc-solidity/pull/148
The BEEFY/GRANDPA Light Client support was carried out in collaboration with the Composable Finance team. Composable Finance is dedicated to improving the accessibility, quality, transparency, efficiency, and security of cross-ecosystem DeFi. Their technology stack is being developed to enable and combine key services across different DeFi ecosystems and protocols. Composable’s work aims to connect ecosystems that are currently siloed by utilizing and expanding IBC outside of Cosmos to Polkadot, Kusama, NEAR, Ethereum, and beyond.
Use Cases
By using IBC-Solidity, it is possible to facilitate the transfer of messages, tokens, and data across various blockchains via IBC, including Ethereum, EVM-compatible blockchains, and Enterprise Ethereum (Hyperledger Besu, GoQuorum).
An instance demonstrating the practical application of IBC-Solidity is the ongoing verification of interoperability between GoQuorum and Corda using this technology, as seen in the case of Progmat Coin promoted by the Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation, which was announced in September 2022.
In addition, the IBC-Solidity can also be extended to connect public blockchains, such as Ethereum and Cosmos, and between public and enterprise blockchains, such as Ethereum and Corda.
Future Work
Datachain plans to collaborate with partner companies in Japan and abroad to launch services in production environments using IBC-Solidity and other technologies like LCP, which was announced last year.
IBC-Solidity is compatible with EVM-compatible chains like BSC, Polygon, and Avalanche, and can be utilized in cross-chain bridges connecting these public chains.
Moreover, an audit is planned in the future to ensure its use in production environments.
About Interchain Foundation
The Interchain Foundation (ICF) is a Swiss non-profit organization dedicated to advancing new technologies and applications, particularly in the realm of open and decentralized software architectures. Their primary objective is to promote and develop the Interchain, a vast network of autonomous blockchains and associated communities united by a shared technology called the Interchain Stack. It exists primarily to support and encourage the free, open-source software that it stewards and the communities that use it.
