Aergo Merkle Bridge: What else is needed for NFT?
“Just setting up my twttr”
- Jack Patrick Dorsey, first tweet in Twitter, 2006
Fifteen years ago, Twitter Co-Founder Jack Dorsey posted the very first tweet (beginning of “tweet”) on Twitter. This famous tweet was converted into a non-replaceable owner’s certificate token (NFT — Non-Fungible Token) which was auctioned for about 2.9 million dollars (about 3.27 billion won). It is not known whether this is an artistic act or a new form of digital ownership, but people have realized that NFTs could be a new opportunity.
With the recent rise of bitcoin in 2021, the blockchain market has become the spotlight. The need for the blockchain industry and ecosystem is expanding. Here, the ecosystem refers to a group of blockchain networks in which several companies gather a common service rather than a single company.
As the number of cryptocurrency projects gradually increase, ecosystems are beginning to take shape in new forms such as DTT, DID, and NFT, depending on the use of the service, but realistically dynamic services performed on one consortium blockchain is difficult to migrate to other blockchain platforms.
Currently, the most widely used blockchain platform for issuing NFT is Ethereum. When issuing NFTs through an open blockchain such as Ethereum, uniqueness is guaranteed to be decentralized. If so, will Ethereum be enough? The biggest problem with Ethereum is the gas fee. The price of Ethereum is currently over $2,400. In addition, the limitations of the network’s scalability led to an increase in gas prices.
Ethereum Gas Price these days
Of course, there are also NFTs issued through closed (permitted) blockchains. The closed blockchain is managed by a reliable central authority. We are then left to believe in the institutions and expect them to manage our assets responsibly. To solve this problem, the consortium chain, which is disconnected from the main network, guarantees data integrity through anchoring, but the data in the consortium chain is not transparent to everyone, thus subject to opaque/incomplete blockchain that includes the possibility of manipulation.
Aergo has conducted research to solve this problem through an ingenious method called the Merkle Bridge.
Merkle Bridge A convenient way of bridging side chains for state-Merkelized blockchains.
The Merkle Bridge enables the movement of data-proven assets through merkle tree proof while maintaining the loosely-coupled state between chains. Merkle Bridge is more flexible than Plasma, more secure and decentralized than using a broker.
Aergo-Aergo Merkle Bridge
Our partner Blocko has previously created Merkle Bridge and is in the process of rebuilding on the test network so that it can be used for future NFTs. Various data from Aergo Enterprise, including DTT, are expected to be transmitted to and utilized by Aergo Mainnet and cross-species public blockchains through the new Merkle Bridge. Recently, with the 2.2.8 patch, AERGO-AERGO Merkle Bridge has completed the task to pass AERGO tokens.
https://github.com/aergoio/aergo/releases/tag/v2.2.8
Aergo Merkle Bridge featuring NFT
Merkle Bridge can be used not only for Tokens but also for information exchange. Information such as DID and TSA can be moved or utilized between heterogeneous networks. This can be seen as a kind of Smart Oracle between networks. We will be able to transfer important assets normally stored in Ethereum to the Aergo network and use them for day trading at low fees. In addition, NFTs issued by various central institutions on its own blockchain network, can also be transferred to ‘user owned’ wallets on the Aergo Network or Ethereum using Merkle Bridge.
Aergo is exploring various business opportunities, including NFT. In the future, businesses may enjoy Aergo Inter-Blockchain Communication service by using Merkle Bridge to deliver NFT or TSA information issued by the sidechain to the main network.
