Introducing Universals — Assets Minted via Bridgeless Patterns in any Blockchain
From Inscriptions to Universals
Inscriptions have pioneered a radically different type of compromise between scaling, security, and impact on user & developer workflows.
The community has grown used to the existing compromises made by Layer 2s, which add a massive value to the ecosystem, but come with their own problems. They all are ultimately connected to Ethereum via bridges, thus requiring tough sacrifices in either security, scalability, and/or convenience. Some L2s reduce attack vectors by making data available on-chain (Arbitrum, Optimism, Polygon zkEVM) at the expense of greatly limiting their throughput. Others make data available only to a handful of parties, leading to a plethora of different attacks (StarkEx, Immutable).
Furthermore, all these alternatives force users to own wrapped versions of currencies, and potentially use sophisticated bridge contracts. Developers need to integrate with different nodes, and potentially different APIs.
Inscriptions make a radically different compromise, at least for the single type of transaction they focus on: minting an NFT. Data is submitted on-chain, but using the ‘cheapest way’ (as calldata), which renders this data 100% inaccessible (and hence useless) to any smart contract. However, this data can be parsed by DApps, who then decide what to do with it off-chain; for example, by using off-chain indexers to make sense of the small amount of information stored in the inscription.
While Inscriptions eliminate the need for bridges, they have several major drawbacks. First, they require major changes in the entire ecosystem, since on-chain logic is not possible. Second, and most importantly, since data is sent on-chain, scalability is also severely limited, as seen by the recent massive congestions in Ethereum, Polygon and other chains (check this thread).
In this post we introduce Universals, a concept developed by the LAOS team, which extends the ‘bridgeless road’ pioneered by Inscriptions. Universals address Inscriptions’ main limitations, allowing for massive offloading of every single mint transaction on Ethereum, Polygon, and even their L2s. Additionally, Universals maintain compatibility with all existing applications in these ecosystems. As an example, a newly minted Universal is fully ERC721 compatible, and can be listed in Opensea.
Furthermore, Universals achieve these properties while maintaining strong security guarantees: data is fully available on-chain, and the complexities associated with bridge security are non-existent — simply because bridges are not part of the equation.
Finally, there is no impact on users, who can utilize Universals without having to own wrapped currencies. Similarly, DApps can continue functioning as usual with no modifications necessary, or, depending on specific requirements, with just a minor adjustment to a single RPC endpoint.
NFTs are Slots with Promises
A key insight behind the development of Universals was the understanding that almost every NFT ever created in Ethereum and its L2 can be thought of as slots, each one pointing to a data-store which represents the asset.
Unless the actual metadata of the NFT is stored on-chain, which is extremely rare and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, the act of minting can be viewed as: “I, the creator of the NFT, hereby grant you ownership of this unique slot in the blockchain, and promise to populate it off-chain with the expected content”.
The details of the promise vary slightly depending on whether the metadata is stored in a private server or in a content-addressable system like IPFS.
When stored in private servers, the promise cannot be verified, and can be revoked at any time. Even if the user checks one day that the metadata is correctly made available, it can be changed or completely removed, intentionally or unintentionally, at any time.
When stored in IPFS, things are slightly better but certain crucial properties are still missing. For example, due to its inherent design, it’s impossible to prove that metadata is not on IPFS, so a user or a DApp can at most complain that “I cannot find it right now”. And content can and does disappear regularly from IPFS. Another significant drawback is that introducing interesting dynamic attributes to these slots requires on-chain transactions to update IPFS addresses, thus seriously conflicting with scalability.
In both scenarios, the content of the slot is not guaranteed to exist in the future, nor can it be proven to have existed in the past.
From Off-Chain Promises to On-Chain Facts
Universals adopt the concept of NFTs-as-slots and move beyond mere off-chain promises. Instead, a linked consensus system — an entire L1 blockchain — is used to populate slots on-chain. This approach harnesses all the benefits of an L1, including guaranteed data-availability, traceability, and true decentralization, to provide a straightforward-to-use approach.
The link between both consensus systems leverages the concept of Universal Location (UL), originally developed within the Polkadot ecosystem. In Polkadot, self-sovereign Parachains have been using a protocol to refer to each others’ resources (e.g. to transfer currencies across them). The latest iteration, XCMv3, generalizes this protocol to encompass all possible locations within any consensus system. Universals bring the application of UL to an extreme, as described below.
Linking Consensus Systems via Universal Location
In the initial step, a fully ERC721 compatible contract is deployed on the blockchain of choice, such as Ethereum. This is the only time that an Ethereum transaction will be required, as all subsequent minting fees will be paid in the sibling L1, for example, LAOS, a fully EVM-compatible Parachain in Polkadot, integrating this pattern at protocol level.
The deployed ERC721 contains includes a mechanism that, on deploy, pre-assigns a huge number (2⁹⁶) of slots to every possible Ethereum address. Each slot is linked to a unique location on the sibling chain. When a slot is traded, the initially assigned owner is correspondingly updated.
Rather than creating each slot individually on Ethereum, all potentially required slots are pre-assigned upon deployment, with their actual content managed by the linked L1 chain. A mint is completed when a slot is filled. Unlike in the current paradigms discussed above, this mint now leaves an L1 trace, producing data that is not only permissionlessly accessible but also guaranteed to be permanent.
Crucially, the minting only impacts a consensus system with much less congestion, and which is prepared to scale these particular transactions at protocol level, such as LAOS. This effectively offloads a significant part of Ethereum’s workload to a sibling L1, without any bridge involved.
Using Universals
Universals are highly convenient for both users and developers.
From the users’ perspective, they can trade their Universals directly on Ethereum (or the blockchain where the uERC721 is deployed), and in the currencies they already own. In particular, they can use Opensea, Blur, Rarible, or use any gaming guild or DeFi contract available.
For developers, many DApps will be immediately compatible without any modifications. For instance, Metamask users can easily add Universals to their wallet’s portfolio or transfer them to other addresses as usual.
Finally, for DApps that process blockchain mint events internally, achieving full compatibility with Universals is straightforward. They simply need to change their EVM RPC endpoint to a Universal Node. This process will be elaborated upon in Part 2 of this post.
More Info
- Create your first Universal on Ethereum or Polygon via LAOS’ Bridgeless Minter.
- Watch me creating one :-)
- Videos explaining Bridgeless Minting: part1, part2.
- Integrate Universals in your DApp, check the dev documentation. Everything is open-source and permissionless.
- All about the LAOS project.
