ICON Bridge: What is it and How does it work?

1 min read

What is ICON Bridge

ICON Bridge is a hub-and-spoke blockchain platform that aims to connect all blockchains within the ICON ecosystem. ICON Bridge is agnostic and able to interconnect any blockchain that supports smart contracts. ICON Bridge is a highly secured, transparent, and interoperable bridge.

It will function in a similar manner to many popular cross-chain bridges throughout the industry. It will function in a comparable manner to many other popular cross-chain bridges throughout the industry. Those who have utilized bridges on other popular chains should feel just as comfortable using ICON Bridge.

In addition to cross-chain transfers and integration with any blockchain that supports smart contracts, ICON Bridge is an early version of ICON’s cutting-edge interoperability product, BTP. In order to meet community and developer demand, we are fast-tracking ICON interoperability with ICON Bridge. ICON Bridge immediately opens up opportunities for cross-chain activity and development, while ICON’s flagship interoperability product BTP continues to be built.

Slowmist is currently auditing ICON Bridge. The ICON community will have the option of downloading an unaudited version of ICON Bridge as auditing takes place. For more information about ICON Bridge, please click here.

ICON Bridge Blockchain Platform: Why is it so important?

During BTP development, ICON encountered high gas consumption fees, so we decided to introduce ICON Bridge as an interim bridging solution while BTP development continues in the background, an early version of BTP that maintains the majority of BTP’s key technical features.

A comparison of ICON Bridge and BTP

One of the most revolutionary aspects of BTP’s technology is the Message Verifier Contract (Light Client). Rather than using trusted validators, smart contracts verify cross-chain transactions through this mechanism.

On the destination blockchain, the Light Client is a live, miniature copy of the source blockchain. A live copy of the ICON blockchain is available on Moonriver’s Light Client, and vice versa. These copies of the blockchain must be updated by Relays to ensure they are current and reflect the original chain. Because blockchains produce new blocks every few seconds, it requires constant updating.

The following table compares ICON Bridge with BTP and shows their differences. It is at this point that the gas fee issue arises. In order to maintain the Light Client contracts, an extreme amount of gas fees must be paid for each one.

Several experienced ICONLOOP team members have shifted to focusing solely on BTP in response to this issue. Now that BTP has been launched, more brainpower is being put into it than ever before. BTP is confident that a fix will be implemented for the gas issue shortly after a number of potential solutions have been reviewed.

The current BTP iteration, ICON Bridge, will be launched in the meantime to jumpstart interoperability. It is ICON that will pass messages between chains and verify transactions in place of the Light Client contract. Upon decentralization, ICON will resume its role as the sole validator of the ICON blockchain.

Via this site