Permissionless Interoperability

The next phase of the Hyperlane vision

The gatekeeping in the current interchain interoperability space is unsustainable.

• Developers on unsupported chains have to beg bridges/interoperability platforms to deploy on their chains.
• Interoperability teams can’t keep up with all the new chains and end up bottlenecking deployment on new chains.
• Asset issuers need to have their assets whitelisted by the teams so they can port their assets to other chains.

It’s a frustrating and untenable situation for both sides as the number of chains and assets continuously increases. Hyperlane solves this.

Introducing Permissionless Interoperability

Permissionless Interoperability is the freedom to bring a complete set of interoperability features to any blockchain, any appchain, any rollup, anytime. No need to ask the Hyperlane team or anyone else, no one can stop you. You control your destiny with Hyperlane.

The goal is to accelerate adoption of new chains, unlock more liquidity, and cut out the gatekeeping clouding interoperability today. Inspired by the design of the Cosmos IBC protocol, the vision for Permissionless Interoperability is to extend the benefits of interoperability to the expanding universe of chains.

Quick Analogy

• Imagine every blockchain, rollup, and appchain is a planet, and bridge/interoperability teams are the interstellar highway planners.
• Planets need to be connected by interstellar highways in order for any interaction or exchange to happen.
• The current highway planners are all centrally planning the interstellar highways. The teams decide what planets are connected and can only focus on a few at a time, which severely limits the growth of unconnected planets and centralizes power to those teams.
• What if anyone could connect their planet/chain to the interstellar highway without needing to lobby the highway planners for permission? To participate in and benefit from the economic exchange among the network of interconnected planets.
• That’s what Hyperlane offers with permissionless interoperability. No need to rely on the team to bring you interoperability anymore, Hyperlane is opening up the Interchain Highway.

Permissionless Hyperlane Features

The permissionless and modular design of Hyperlane powers many unique features:

Permissionless Deployment: Bring the Hyperlane interoperability stack to any EVM chain without relying on the Hyperlane team (non-EVM chains support in the works)

Modular Security: Own and customize your app’s security model to any degree. Mix, match, and stack Interchain Security Modules (ISMs). Set parameters to filter out harmful transactions. Or even build your own security modules.

Warp Routes: Wrap and move any asset to any Hyperlane-supported chain permissionlessly. Each asset is siloed in its own contract and comes with customizable security measures through ISMs.

And some more cool stuff we’re working on:

Out-of-The-Box Interoperability

• There’s a growing field of out-of-the-box rollups and appchains, such as Cosmos appchains, Celestia rollups, Polygon supernets, Avalanche subnets, Optimism opchains, Arbitrum rollups, Starknet L3s, Eclipse rollups, and more.
• That’s a lot of new potential chains to support, and the Hyperlane team can’t possibly deploy on each one individually. With Permissionless Deployments these new chains can connect themselves to the Hyperlane network permissionlessly.
• What’s even more exciting is the development of Hyperlane Permissionless Deployments into an out-of-the-box interoperability stack where you can launch a new appchain/rollup together with Hyperlane interoperability and bridging, all on day 1.
• It’s a symbiotic relationship where these new Hyperlane-connected chains can open themselves up for existing interchain apps to launch on day 1. For example, the new breed of interchain stablecoins could provide new chains with the ability to import assets as early as their genesis blocks.
• The best part? Our proof-of-concept with Celestia is already live on testnet. If you want to experiment and launch your own out-of-the-box rollup and interoperability stack, start here.

Exploring the Interchain Safely

• Safety continues to be our priority. In the case of Permissionless Interoperability, the problem isn’t sending value to new chains, it’s getting value off new chains. Risk is limited because you need approval from apps on other chains to even send messages to them.
• Sovereign Consensus siloes risk across the Hyperlane network by giving apps the power to customize their security with different Interchain Security Modules (ISMs), while the default ISM lets any new chain securely receive communication from established chains.
• Since you can customize security parameters and easily prevent new networks (you are in control of which chains you communicate with) from delivering messages to your app, there’s minimal risk even if faulty rug chains connect themselves to the network.
• And even if a nefarious rug chain is connected and sends threatening transactions to your app, you can use set logic to filter out threatening transactions. For example, you can set a condition for messages that move more than 10% of a liquidity pool.

End Game

We envision an end game where you start from a menu when deploying a blockchain and can customize + launch your entire Hyperlane interoperability stack with a few clicks. Select what security modules you want, what message parameters you want to filter, what assets to support for bridging, what validator and relayer providers to start with, what chains to connect to at launch. Interoperability anywhere, all in one interface.

This is Hyperlane.

More about Hyperlane

Hyperlane is the first Permissionless Interoperability layer, enabling anyone to connect any blockchain, out-of-the-box. With Hyperlane, developers can build Interchain Applications, apps that abstract away the complexity of interchain interactions and serve users on any connected chain. Additionally, Hyperlane’s modular security stack gives developers the power to customize their interchain security. Hyperlane development is open-source and led by core developers at Abacus Works.

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