The difficulties migrating digital property reminiscent of bonds or NFTs with residual funds between totally different L1 or L2 chains
Authors: Andreas Freund, L2 WG Co-Chair, on behalf of the EEA Group Tasks L2 Working Group
Everyone knows that Web3 will rule the world, regardless of customers hooked on the web2 approach of prompt gratification furiously hitting (again) buttons and yelling at screens when their Ethereum transactions aren’t full after 2 seconds. L2s will give these customers their Velocity for the Web3 world of tomorrow, right now.
L2s can provide Fortnite nerds their favourite, uncommon in-game skins or weapons as NFTs that may be traded in or exterior of the sport, producing eye-watering earnings. They will additionally present full privateness in asset buying and selling with esoteric zk-zk-rollups. Full privateness is a dream for all conventional finance asset managers and is frowned upon by world tax authorities.
So what’s to not love or hate or love and hate about L2s?
As our asset managers are excitedly creating L2 buying and selling accounts, they’re rapidly confronted with the comparatively meager collection of monetary property that may be traded on L2s. Wish to transfer any of your debt devices from Ethereum’s Maker, Aaave, Compound, or Centrifuge? Nope! Annuities? Nope! Dividend-paying shares? Nope! How about transferring them to different Blockchains or transferring them from different Blockchains? Nope!
Effectively, you are able to do easy NFTs or tokens, or you’ll be able to create and commerce your debt devices immediately on an L2, however they are going to be caught there. At that time, our asset supervisor sighs, closes their laptop computer, and walks away. Since our asset supervisor represents about 40 Trillions USD of trades per quarter globally, and since extra advanced property comprise 95%+ of these trades, L2s could have a tough time taking over conventional finance, and thus proceed to develop exponentially for a chronic time period, except they will handle the market of digital property paying residuals.
The query is then why are these sorts of advanced digital property accessible on Ethereum markets reminiscent of Aave however can’t be moved to L2s?
Let’s take a step again and have a look at the present scenario. Presently, the tactic of bridging digital property reminiscent of ERC20 tokens or NFTs between networks – for instance, Ethereum <> L2, Ethereum <> Zksync, Ethereum <> Polygon – immobilizes the property on the origin community after which instantiates them on the goal community.
This strategy works nicely if the digital asset has no related enterprise guidelines that infer rights or obligations to asset house owners reminiscent of steady cash or easy NFTs. Examples of necessary digital property that infer rights to the digital asset proprietor are residual funds/asset grants reminiscent of dividend-paying equities, bonds, annuities, asset-backed securities, digital property with royalties, and so on.
Sadly, such digital property at present can’t be transferred between networks as a result of a switch would break the connection between the asset and the rights or obligations related to it.
Given the significance of digital property with residuals in conventional finance, the rising proliferation of DeFi property that mimic conventional property reminiscent of bonds or asset-backed securities, and increasingly worth locked in bridges and L2s, there’s a important hazard that L2s will hit a development plateau as a result of they can not supply what many of the world needs to commerce.
So, what might be attainable answer approaches to this conundrum?
The reply is, not many … no less than but!
Determine 1: A easy bond on an L1 blockchain
Utilizing the straightforward instance of a Bond on Ethereum paying on a schedule in DAI (see Determine 1 above), we define a few of the challenges (in Determine 2 beneath):
- Since Alice, the payer of the scheduled bond funds, is usually unaware that Bob, the payee, moved a bond from Ethereum (L1) to L2, Alice would ship funds to the L1 Bond sensible contract with Bob’s Ethereum handle. Since Bob is now not the proprietor of the bond, however somewhat the bridge contract is, the fee would fail.
- If the bond contract had been nonetheless conscious that Bob was the payee, then it might nonetheless settle for a bond fee, however the fee could be owned by the bridge contract.
- Due to this fact, when the bond is locked within the bridge, the anticipated DAI bond funds have to be instantiated on the L2 aspect within the Bond contract, now with Bob’s L2 handle being the proprietor of each the Bond token and the wrapped DAI
- Which means when a fee is acquired into the Ethereum bond contract, the bridge community have to be notified in regards to the fee via an occasion and mint the fee quantity as wrapped DAI on the DAI bridge contract on the L2 aspect, for Bob. That’s problematic as a result of there is no such thing as a corresponding DAI within the bridge on the Ethereum aspect. In any case, it’s related to the Ethereum (L1) bond contract. Which means Bob’s WDAI on L2 could be nugatory. Due to this fact, the fee quantity in DAI can solely be minted as an Ethereum IOU within the L2 Bond contract, for the reason that DAI can’t be taken out of the L2 bridge contract. Ergo, the DAI funds the bondholder receives are ineffective on the L2 aspect. That’s naturally not fascinating.
- If the bond is traded to Claire on L2, Claire is now eligible to obtain bond funds and Bob now not is. That implies that after Claire bought the Bond, the bridge community should notify the L1 bond contract of the brand new proprietor for Claire’s fee to be acquired on the Ethereum aspect. That additionally implies that Alice must know that she must ship her bond funds listed to Claire and never Bob. And as soon as Claire receives a fee, the bridge community must create the identical Ethereum DAI IOU on the L2 aspect. And so forth for each possession change.
These open questions are for the straightforward case of a bond. Royalties for instance, the place the funds are largely unbiased of token possession and usually multiple celebration receives a portion of the fee, are much more advanced as a result of not all funds have to be bridged. Nevertheless, the (internet current) worth of the digital asset relies on total fee flows.
Typically talking, it’s unclear how you can port advanced digital property between networks when the worth of the asset relies on funds on the origin community however the asset is traded on the goal community.
A promising first try has been made to handle this advanced problem with the GPACT protocol and Crosschain Protocol Stack, which is at present being developed throughout the EEA Crosschain Interoperability Working Group.
The newly shaped EEA Group Tasks L2 Working Group, with participation from the EEA, Matter Labs, Polygon, Offchain Labs, Accenture, VMWare, ConsenSys, Perun, Connext, Present, and the Ethereum Basis, has additionally taken up the problem and revealed an Eth Magicians and Eth Analysis publish on the topic, calling on the Ethereum group to solicit feedback and deal with this problem, and is collaborating with the EEA Crosschain Interoperability Working Group to see if the GPACT protocol could be efficiently utilized in a PoC to switch advanced digital property between L2 networks.
We’re inviting all events to hitch us and handle this necessary problem for all the public, enterprise, and Blockchain ecosystem collectively!
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