Octopus Network Launches Adaptive IBC to Bridge Cosmos with NEAR
+ Revealing Its Partnership with a Cosmos Pioneer: Secret Network ✨
(Lisbon) — Octopus Network, a Web3 infrastructure built on the Near Protocol, announced the launch of its Adaptive IBC during NearCon 2023. This innovative technology bridges the Cosmos ecosystem with NEAR.
Pioneering Integration with Secret Network
Secret Network, one of the longest-running confidential computing blockchains, is set to become the first user of Adaptive IBC in early 2024. This integration marks a significant milestone as it establishes the first connection between the Cosmos and NEAR ecosystems, expanding the interoperability of the IBC protocol.
Unveiling the Collaboration
Louis Liu, founder of Octopus Network, and Alex Zaidelson, CEO of SCRT Labs, the core development team of Secret Network, unveiled this collaboration during NearCon 2023. “It’s a groundbreaking development in interoperability, unleashing enormous potential as it connects the NEAR ecosystem with Cosmos,” said Louis Liu, referring to the Adaptive IBC developed by the Octopus Network team.
Understanding IBC
IBC, or Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol, manages authentication and data transport between two blockchains. It is widely recognized in the industry as one of the most comprehensive open blockchain interoperability protocol stacks. The project is a crucial component of Octopus 2.0’s roadmap, facilitating seamless asset transfer between the NEAR and Cosmos ecosystems.
Empowering Confidential Computing
On the basis of the IBC partnership, Secret Network, built using the Cosmos SDK and Tendermint consensus and featuring confidentiality-preserving smart contracts, is exploring additional collaborations with Octopus Network. The aim is to provide more confidential computing features between NEAR and Cosmos. Planned features include allowing smart contracts on NEAR to utilize the confidential computation features from the Secret Network.
With such integration, a smart contract built on NEAR can perform the majority of its operations within its home network, while leveraging a proxy contract on Secret for tasks requiring confidential computation — effectively harnessing the “best of both worlds.”
Strategic Vision for 2024
According to Alex Zaidelson, CEO of SCRT Labs, this partnership with Octopus is part of the 2024 strategy to make Secret Network’s confidential computing power accessible to developers and users across the Web3 ecosystem, targeting Ethereum, NEAR, and other leading blockchains. “We strongly believe that confidential computing is a key driver for the next wave of adoption and are thrilled to bring it to every blockchain out there,” Zaidelson said.
Future Prospects: Connecting NEAR with Major Ecosystems
Louis Liu states that Octopus Network aims to connect NEAR with other major blockchain ecosystems in the near future, such as Ethereum, BNB Chain, and Solana, by building the NEAR IBC Port. “The advent of the NEAR IBC Port inaugurates an era of boundless opportunities for the NEAR ecosystem, igniting innovation, empowering interoperability, and expanding the horizons of what is conceivable in the blockchain landscape,” Liu said.
About Secret Network:
Secret Network offers scalable permissionless smart contracts with a confidential by default design — bringing novel use cases to blockchain not feasible on public systems. Secret Network was the first protocol to provide confidential smart contracts on mainnet, live since September 2020.
Secret Network is built with the Cosmos Software Development Kit (SDK) bringing interoperable confidential computing to the entire Cosmos ecosystem.
Secret Network uses a combination of the Intel SGX (Software Guard Extension) Trusted Execution Environment technology, several encryption schemes, and key management to bring confidentiality by default to blockchain users.
Secret Contracts are an implementation of the Rust-based smart contract compiling toolkit CosmWasm, adding confidential metadata possibilities. Secret Network is powered by the Native public coin SCRT which is used for fees, Proof-of-Stake, security, and Governance. With more than 30+ Dapps on mainnet and 100+ full time builders, Secret Network aims to bring confidential computing to all of Web3.
