MAP Protocol Explained: Provable Decentralized Cross-Chain Infrastructure

“MAP Protocol, with its mature, innovative, and stable cross-chain solution design, enables secure and seamless cross-chain communication and asset transfer between EVM chains and non-EVM chains. The architecture of the relay chain not only allows for multi-chain scalability but also mitigates the risks of insecure cross-chain messages. The unique design of lightweight clients based on zero-knowledge proofs reduces the complexity of developing for heterogeneous chains while ensuring the security of cross-chain message transmission. By being compatible with nearly all blockchains and supporting native deployment of DApps on the relay chain, MAP Protocol emerges as a core component of cross-chain operations, with the potential to prove itself as the true future of cross-chain solutions.”

— Professor Liu Yang, Director of the Network Security Laboratory at Nanyang Technological University.

As the L1 ecosystems thrive independently, Ethereum is poised to maintain its dominant position in the L1 space, although not without competition. In the intricate and ever-evolving landscape of multiple chains, the cross-chain interoperability race offers high certainty and continues to broaden its horizons with new chains and dApps. For investors, this presents an unmissable opportunity.

As of October 2022, there are already over 100 cross-chain bridge projects. Stargate, a cross-chain bridge built on the LayerZero protocol, has accumulated a total cross-chain value exceeding $450 million. Compared to the previous leader Multichain, LayerZero breaks the impossible trilemma of cross-chain bridge asset redemption, optimizing cross-chain cost-effectiveness. However, this popular solution still relies on off-chain privileged roles as oracle machines. The oracle data feed lacks precision, and its decentralization doesn’t provide cryptographic proof, leaving room for potential collusion among third parties. Thus, this cross-chain mechanism appears to be less than perfect and lacks a truly decentralized spirit.

The MAP Protocol Labs team, following 100% adherence to Satoshi Nakamoto’s consensus mechanism, has prioritized provable security and efficiency. After nearly four years of development, they have successfully addressed the industry challenge of lightweight nodes’ inability to perform cross-chain verification between heterogeneous chains. The result is the MAP Protocol, a provable decentralized cross-chain interoperability protocol based on lightweight nodes and zk technology, covering all L1 solutions.

The Relay Chain mainnet of MAP Protocol went live at the end of August 2022 and is set to officially cover all mainstream L1 networks by the end of the year. It has garnered official support from well-known L1 networks such as NEAR, Polygon, Flow, ioTex, OKX Chain, and KuCoin Community Chain. Simultaneously, the MAP Protocol team is actively preparing a series of open-source ecosystem development projects for developers and the community, rewarding those contributing to the MAP Protocol and Web3 ecosystems. By the end of 2022, with full integration with major EVM and Non-EVM networks like Ethereum, Polygon, BNB Smart Chain, Klaytn, NEAR, MAP Protocol aims to facilitate seamless data and NFT flow across all chains. This move will drive paradigm shifts in DID, decentralized derivatives, GameFi, and more, empowering aApps to optimize user experiences and resource utilization in the multi-chain landscape.

In the increasingly competitive future of multiple chains, omnichain infrastructure might be even more critical than L2 as a blockchain scalability solution. Through omnichain infrastructure, dApp performance can increase exponentially based on the TPS of covered blockchains, providing more freedom compared to L2 scaling methods and removing limitations on dApp development. To make Web3 products as appealing to users as Web2 products, we believe that the upcoming MAP Protocol, set to go live soon, is a highly noteworthy omnichain interoperability protocol.

01 Views

We are optimistic about the MAP Protocol, which has undergone nearly four years of advancement and is set to go live comprehensively. In addition to the market perspective mentioned at the beginning, the following aspects contribute to our positive outlook on MAP Protocol.

At Technical Level

MAP Protocol: The Most Efficient omnichain Communication Infrastructure

The smart contract compilation layer of the MAP Relay Chain has pre-compiled writes for all major blockchains’ signature algorithms, Merkel tree proofs, and hash algorithms. Simultaneously, its cross-chain components, the light node (light client), and Messenger can deploy cross-chain operations in a non-intrusive manner to L1. Therefore, MAP Protocol is the only industry project with a light node that is instantly connected to all EVM and non-EVM chains with provable decentralized security through independent self-verification. For developers, the complexity of developing across different chains is significantly reduced with MAP Protocol, and security concerns are alleviated using the SDK and other technical support provided by MAP Protocol.

Continuous Optimization with Cost-Effective Solutions

MAP Protocol only charges gas fees for its Relay Chain and is further optimizing data verification costs through zero-knowledge proofs (ZK) + light node cross-chain verification, reducing the gas fees that users need to pay. This high-cost performance approach will significantly lower user usage fees and provide stronger cost advantages for omnichain applications established through MAP Protocol.

Provide Blockchain-Level Cross-Chain Technology Verification with 100% Nakamoto Consensus, Minimizing Malicious Possibilities

The light nodes on MAP Protocol are smart contracts deployed on-chain with independent self-verification features. The cross-chain messaging programs, Maintainer and Messenger, also exist independently between chains. The entire verification process does not rely on any off-chain data verification or any third-party privileged roles. It is a fully provable decentralized cross-chain mechanism. The light node, Maintainer, and Messenger mutually verify each other, ensuring the authenticity and security of cross-chain verification from all aspects, mechanically eliminating the possibility of malicious action by Messenger and Maintainer.

At Project Level

Pioneer in omnichain Data and NFT Circulation

MAP Protocol serves as a pioneer in facilitating the omnichain circulation of data and NFTs. It supports the flow of data from various L1s in the form of on-chain oracles, contrasting with the current reliance on off-chain oracles for data circulation on different blockchains. On-chain oracles provide tamper-resistant, provably secure cross-chain data, ensuring data accuracy. Additionally, on-chain oracles prevent the existence of privileged roles, mitigating potential security risks associated with oracles and addressing the issue of data ambiguity in off-chain oracle proofs. MAP Protocol’s innovative approach to omnichain NFTs involves a method that does not require the traditional “minting + burning” process for NFT transfers. Instead, it facilitates omnichain connectivity by addressing ownership and usage rights, essentially creating a “clone” of the NFT. We believe that the innovations of the MAP Protocol team in omnichain data and NFTs will bring about a paradigm shift for concepts such as DID, on-chain derivatives, soul-bound tokens, GameFi, and more.

Active Promotion of omnichain Ecosystem and omnichain dApp Development

MAP Protocol Labs is actively preparing a series of activities aimed at developers and the community to expand the influence of the omnichain concept. It is noteworthy that MAP Protocol not only covers the Ethereum ecosystem but also includes Ethereum’s L2 and users and assets from all thriving L1s. For nascent dApps, achieving omnichain deployment through MAP Protocol increases their chances of success. For matured dApps, it offers the opportunity for secondary growth and enhances product usage.

02 Background

What is cross-chain and multi-chain?

Before understanding what cross-chain and multi-chain are, let’s talk about blockchain interoperability.

Blockchain is an independent ledger. Each blockchain has different consensus algorithms, data structures, security algorithms, and ledger types, making it difficult to communicate with each other. Interoperability allows different independent blockchains to actively communicate and interact with each other, allowing users to send information, metadata, and assets from one chain to another.

Cross-chain is an important means to achieve interoperability of different blockchains. Users can transfer assets and metadata from one chain to another through cross-chain without any intermediary. Multi-chain is an ecosystem in which multiple blockchains are connected to each other. However, with the increasing number of mainstream blockchains, even if multiple chains are interconnected, the overall blockchain ecosystem is still fragmented. Although there are many cross-chain projects at present, the continuous theft of cross-chain bridges has challenged the security of cross-chain infrastructure. Therefore, neither cross-chain nor multi-chain can truly solve the interoperability problem of blockchain.

New form of multi-chain - the necessity of the Omnichain chain

In order to solve the dilemma of cross-chain and multi-chain, a form of interoperability called “Omnichain’’ came into being. Omnichain chain is the future of multi-chain, allowing dApps, protocols and users on different blockchains to interact seamlessly and seamlessly is the key to Web3’s growth. The emergence of this new multi-chain form is also inevitable:

L1 ecological development

People’s expectations for the L1 ecosystem are affected by market cycles. In a bear market, people tend to be more pessimistic and believe that the only L1 that can survive is Ethereum; in a bull market, they are extremely optimistic and believe that any application can dominate. However, judging from the TVL data of major L1s in the past two years, multi-chain parallelism is the future trend of blockchain development.

Comparison of TVL of various public chains from 2020 to 2022: The blue part is Ethereum TVL

It can be seen from the comparison of TVL volumes of major public chains from August 2020 to August 2021 and August 2021 to September 2022 that although the total TVL volume of Ethereum still ranks first, the total TVL volume of other L1s has risen slightly. Although it cannot become the “killer” of Ethereum in terms of asset value for the time being, the L1 ecology outside Ethereum will continue to gradually develop. For example, the number of application services and daily active users on BNB Chain have exceeded Ethereum. As new public chains continue to emerge, an Omnichain ecology that is compatible with EVM and Non-EVM ecology will be an important development direction.

The dilemma of dApp growth

According to data from DappRadar, there are currently a total of 12,670 dApps. Due to the congestion and high fees of Ethereum, nearly three-quarters of dApps choose to be issued on lighter and more cost-friendly public chains such as BNB Chain. . However, Ethereum has the largest number of users and assets on the chain, and single-chain dApps not issued by Ethereum still hope to obtain diverse user asset resources on Ethereum and other chains. If they choose to issue them separately on multiple chains, dApps will face the problems of non-interoperability of multi-chain assets and splitting of multi-chain ledgers. At the same time, users will also be deterred by complicated multi-chain addresses and high gas fees.

Omnichain is the best growth plan for dApp under the coexistence of multiple chains. Through Omnichain links, dApps can connect users and assets on all blockchains, multi-chain ledgers are no longer fragmented, and the entire dApp operation will be more orderly; at the same time, the user experience is also better, and users can seamlessly switch between multiple L1s.

Ethereum’s Computational Bottleneck

From the perspective of computer history, any singular computing entity has a bottleneck in computational capacity. In other words, regardless of how a computer improves its computing power, it cannot handle computations exceeding its bottleneck value. As the “world computer,” Ethereum is expected to further increase its computational capacity after the introduction of sharding, potentially boosting transactions per second (TPS) to 100,000. However, its computational bottleneck still exists. To usher all users and products into Web3, expanding the overall computational capacity of Ethereum and other public chains together is the optimal strategy.

Web3’s Cloud Computing Infrastructure

With the continuous increase of on-chain users and more robots and smart devices interacting through smart contracts, or even further, if Web2 users migrate to Web3 and enjoy equivalent interaction speeds, the total TPS required for Web3 could be in the billions. To achieve this goal, numerous L1s need to collaborate, supporting a cloud computing architecture similar to that of Web2 for computational power allocation. In this scenario, a omnichain network like MAP Protocol would act as a cloud computing balancer, seamlessly distributing computational resources for dApp transaction requests across various blockchains. Therefore, a omnichain solution holds greater long-term application value.

Mainstream Cross-Chain Communication Solutions

Before analyzing the omnichain concept, let’s first gain a basic understanding of the foundation of omnichain—the cross-chain technology. As a distributed ledger system, the essence of blockchain is decentralization without privileged roles. The core method is to record the ledger using a chain structure, ensuring results are traceable and tamper-resistant. The core of cross-chain lies in ledger alignment, and here are three major solutions for ledger alignment:

Note: Here, decentralization is defined as the use of Nakamoto consensus and blockchain-style structure for distributed ledger confirmation, rather than ledger confirmation by privileged roles protected under “traditional cryptographic security mechanisms.”

Centralized: Multi-Party Secure Computation

Secure Multi-Party Computation (MPC) is a privacy-preserving distributed computing technology in the field of cryptography. Representatives of projects using this cross-chain verification method include Axelar, Celer (cBridge), Multichain, Wormhole, and Thorchain.

In the MPC cross-chain solution, a fixed or regularly rotating set of witnesses, designated by the project, serves as the ultimate confirmers of cross-chain validity. This means that if a hacker gains access to the witness’s servers, they could steal all the funds locked in cross-chain transactions, or the project itself might misappropriate related funds. Since it’s impossible to eliminate the existence of privileged roles, the entire verification process cannot completely mitigate the risk of malicious activities.

Threshold signature (MPC)

There are many variants of the MPC scheme, such as threshold signatures, or Validator rotation mechanisms at MPC signature nodes, but these cannot change the essence of MPC: a centralized cryptography scheme. According to a report released in August this year by Chainalysis, the amount stolen from cross-chain bridge attacks accounted for 69% of the total number of stolen cryptocurrencies in 2022, with losses reaching $2 billion, with projects using MPC cross-chain bearing the brunt.

Quasi-centralized: Oracle

Oracles are off-chain infrastructure that link off-chain data to the blockchain. In quasi-centralized cross-chain solutions, oracles are widely used, and the most representative one is LayerZero: LayerZero uses relayers and Oracle oracles for cross-chain transmission and validity confirmation.

Oracle’s use in LayerZero

Specifically, LayerZero uses a mutual verification method between Chain Link nodes and Relayer built by the community to ensure cross-chain security. However, its white paper also mentions an extreme situation: relays and oracles work together to conduct malicious action.

Although the independent operation of oracles and relays can reduce this risk, relays are deployed by the project side. Choosing Chainlink’s oracle is essentially trusting that Chainlink will not join forces with the project side to conduct malicious action. However, the risk probability of collusion between Chainlink nodes and relayers is inherent. If it happens once in a billion, the colluder can steal all the assets of the system. At the same time, the security of oracle machines is not strong enough. For example, Chainlink’s nodes were attacked in September 2020, resulting in at least 700 ETH being stolen.

In addition, cross-chain verification requires accurate data, while data transmitted by oracles is ambiguous, colloquially known as imprecise data. For example, in September 2020, the oracle Pyth experienced a data malfunction, reporting a Bitcoin price 90% lower than other data providers. Such imprecise data can cause significant challenges for dApp applications.

It is essential to note that, although LayerZero’s design includes light nodes, these serve the purpose of fast intra-chain data verification (further explained in the next point). The light nodes are not cross-chain verification entities; instead, they act as privileged roles with ambiguity – oracles.

Fully Decentralized: Cross-Chain Verification Between Light Nodes

Fully decentralized cross-chain verification relies on light nodes, also known as light clients. This concept is derived from the Simplified Payment Verification (SPV) technique outlined in the Bitcoin whitepaper. Light nodes, in a lightweight manner, can swiftly validate the legitimacy of a transaction throughout the entire ledger. They possess the characteristic of being “independently verifiable” without relying on any privileged third party or authorized entity for legitimacy verification. A light node doesn’t necessarily mean a literal client program; it can function as a component or even a smart contract. Projects currently employing light nodes for cross-chain purposes include MAP Protocol, Cosmos, Polkadot, and Aurora (Rainbow Bridge).

Light client technology cross-chain mechanism: taking MAP Protocol as an example

During cross-chain verification, the block header information of Chain A, including the Validator’s signature and information about the Validator set, is synchronized to the Chain B’s light nodes by the cross-chain messenger whenever there is a change in the Validator set. These light nodes may be embedded in the chain’s infrastructure or deployed on the chain through smart contracts. This ensures that Chain B possesses the signature and Validator set information from Chain A.

In the scenario of an illicit transaction attempting to cross from Chain A to Chain B, the transaction would only be valid if the hacker successfully attacks Chain A comprehensively. In the design of light nodes, hackers cannot obtain a legitimate and valid signature from the Validator set of Chain A. Additionally, Chain B would not accept invalid cross-chain requests initiated by hackers. Moreover, the cross-chain messenger responsible for transmitting the (Chain A) Validator’s signature information, deployed on or within Chain B, cannot insert false signature information. This is because each succeeding Validator set is authorized through two-thirds of signatures from the previous set. To compromise this, an attack would need to target the entire Chain A, making it practically infeasible in a production environment.

Highlights: Unlike Cosmos, Polkadot, and Aurora (Rainbow Bridge), MAP Protocol achieves coverage for all L1 networks, not just ecosystems with homogenous chains.

This achievement is attributed to significant innovations by MAP Protocol:

MAP Protocol incorporates the signature algorithms and hash algorithms of various thriving L1 networks within the Relay Chain’s precompiled contract layer, making all L1 networks homogenous to the Relay Chain.

The implementation of Merkle Tree proofs in the precompiled contract layer, deploying light nodes of each L1 network as smart contracts on the respective networks, achieves cross-chain validity verification between light nodes. This stands in contrast to Cosmos and Polkadot, which cannot support heterogeneous chains like Ethereum.

MAP Protocol light client cross-chain mechanism

03 Products and Business models

MAP Protocol

MAP Protocol is a Web3 interoperability protocol, with its core innovation lying in the development and deployment of light node technology and ZK (Zero-Knowledge) technology over a span of four years. Utilizing the cross-chain verification mechanism based on light nodes, MAP Protocol successfully integrates major L1 signature algorithms, hash algorithms, and Merkle Tree proofs as precompiled contracts at the MAP Relay Chain virtual machine layer. This homogenizes MAP Relay Chain with all chains while introducing zk technology to further optimize cross-chain verification fees and reduce gas fee costs.

In essence, MAP Protocol is the only infrastructure in the market that covers all chains and boasts the highest level of security. For developers, MAP Protocol significantly reduces learning and operational costs, while for users, it provides blockchain-level security while reducing usage fees.

MAP Protocol consists of three parts:

1. Protocol Layer — Core of omnichain Communication Verification

The MAP Protocol protocol layer is the bottommost layer and the core of omnichain communication verification, responsible for cross-chain verification. This layer comprises the MAP Relay Chain, light nodes deployed on various chains, and the cross-chain messenger Maintainer. The MAP Relay Chain virtual machine layer successfully integrates major L1 signature algorithms, hash algorithms, and Merkle Tree proofs as precompiled contracts, turning the MAP Relay Chain into a super language machine proficient in the languages of various chains. Through the MAP Relay Chain, communication between chains is made possible, laying the homogenous foundation for cross-chain interoperability.

The independently verifiable and immediately finality-assured light nodes deployed on various chains, based on the homogenous foundation provided by the MAP Relay Chain, can easily be deployed on any corresponding L1 in the form of smart contracts. This allows for decentralized cross-chain validity verification.

Maintainer is an independent cross-chain messenger responsible for updating the latest status of light nodes. It writes consensus layer block header information (Validator signatures) from various chains as transactions into the smart contract of the light node on the target chain, ensuring consistency between the light nodes on the target chain and the Validator information on the origin chain.

The MAP Relay Chain, with various precompiled contracts embedded, is a unique presence in the industry. Compared to other light node cross-chain solutions, MAP Protocol can cover all L1 networks. Combined with its unique cross-chain communication components, MAP Protocol significantly alleviates obstacles to data cross-chain and the free flow of assets across all chains.

1. MAP Omnichain as a Service Layer — Targeted at dApp Developers

MOS layer

MOS Layer is the second layer, similar to Google Mobile Service for the Android ecosystem, providing Omnichain development services for dApp developers. This layer includes cross-chain asset locking smart contracts deployed on various blockchains and the cross-chain messaging component Messenger. Developers can directly leverage this layer to establish Omnichain application scenarios or further customize based on their needs. The smart contracts in this layer are open-source components audited by CertiK, and dApp developers can use them directly without concerns about security and development costs, thereby saving on Omnichain development and learning costs.

1. Omnichain Application Layer — Expanding the Omnichain dApp Ecosystem

The Omnichain Application Layer is related to the development of the dApp Omnichain ecosystem. The Omnichain services of the MOS layer enabled dApps to achieve interoperability. Additionally, the verification network of data assets at the protocol layer can drive continuous expansion of dApp ecosystems, thereby realizing an Omnichain ecosystem where various chains are interconnected.

MAP Protocol Omnichain Data Circulation

Taking decentralized derivatives and synthetic assets as an example, currently, both are constrained by the prices and quantities of assets on other chains. The use of off-chain oracles fails to provide accurate and timely asset data, leading to suboptimal liquidity and user experiences. While deploying on multiple chains could address this issue, the process is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and adds unnecessary development costs. However, by deploying on the MAP Relay Chain, decentralized derivatives and synthetic assets can obtain precise multi-chain data from the MAP Protocol’s on-chain oracles. This eliminates the hindrances to data flow, enabling effortless Omnichain asset circulation.

Similar use cases include Omnichain DID, Omnichain lending, Omnichain swap, Omnichain GameFi, Omnichain DAO governance, Omnichain tokens, and Omnichain NFTs. Regardless of where the main business contracts of the dApp are deployed on L1, developers can easily build Omnichain applications capable of covering users and assets on all chains through the MAP Protocol.

Business model

Tokenomics

According to the contract settings of MAP Protocol, the total supply of the $MAP token is 10 billion, and as of November 2022, the total market value is approximately $105 million. According to Coingecko’s data, the circulating supply in the public market for MAP Protocol is around 20%.

2. Team Incentives (15%): The project started in 2019, and the team tokens will be fully distributed by 2024, with a lock-up period longer than that of the majority of projects.
4. Ecosystem DAO (21%): This portion is not subject to any lock-up and is entirely determined by the community for token utilization strategies. In MAP Protocol’s DAO governance system, any resolution that impacts community members must undergo thorough discussion on the MAP Protocol forum, formulate a final proposal, and then move to on-chain voting by the MAP Protocol DAO.
6. MAP Protocol Foundation (12%): Owned by the MAP Protocol Foundation, this allocation is dedicated to ecosystem development and the expansion of Web3 Omnichain ecology.
8. Investors and Early Supporters (22%): Held by investors and early supporters.
10. Mining Rewards (30%): Allocated as rewards for mining to validators securing the MAP Relay Chain’s safety and Maintainers updating the light node status between chains.

Gas fee model Gas fee model

As a public underlying infrastructure, MAP Protocol only charges the gas fee of the Relay Chain. Projects related to centralized mechanisms such as Oracle and MPC charge a fixed percentage corresponding to the cross-chain amount. For developers, MAP Protocol’s charging model is application-friendly.

04 Financing and Valuation

Financing

MAP Protocol did not conduct any primary market financing. Instead, it was directly listed on the Bithumb exchange after 2 years of silent research and development. Therefore, it lacked the endorsement of well-known capital. Compared to LayerZero, which previously gained popularity through Stargate and subsequently gained favor from giant VCs, MAP Protocol has not received much mainstream media attention. Of course, this is related to the fact that MAP Protocol has not yet fully launched the bottom layer and started running (the team revealed that it will fully open all mainstream L1 by the end of the year).

One of the founders, James XYC, mentioned that Cosmos and Polkadot were at the height of their popularity when MAP Protocol was launched. The MAP Protocol team had preliminary contacts with several institutional investors at the time. Almost all institutional investors persuaded MAP Protocol to abandon this track, believing that the popular Cosmos and Polkadot were already complete enough on cross-chains. Therefore, the MAP Protocol team gave up seeking support from institutional investors at that time, and organized the team to raise funds to start research and development.

It now appears that both Cosmos and Polkadot are currently constrained by technical bottlenecks and product positioning bottlenecks, and their development momentum has been weakened. The MAP Protocol team continues to find innovative solutions to solve the problems of privileged roles and the inability to link all prosperous L1s. Now, it has indeed turned our vision into reality by successfully developing an Omnichain dApp infrastructure for developers based on light client cross-chain verification, capable of covering all blockchains.

Valuation

Compared with other cross-chain technology-related project parties, MAP Protocol’s current market value is at a stage of being seriously underestimated.

05 The Team

Deeply rooted in a culture of technical expertise, the MAP Protocol team has demonstrated a commitment to development rather than engaging in performative activities for investors. Founded in 2019, MAP Protocol made its way to the Bithumb exchange, a compliant trading platform in South Korea, in early 2021. The team’s strategic focus on building, as opposed to extensive public relations efforts targeting investors, sets them apart in the current climate where storytelling often takes precedence. This approach indicates that the MAP Protocol team adheres to a well-defined development roadmap.

Examining MAP Protocol’s achievements, from the challenging task of creating a light client cross-chain technology that covers all chains to the integration of various signature and hash algorithms precompiled contracts for the Relay Chain EVM layer, and its comprehensive Omnichain design, GitHub codebase, and ongoing development of zk cross-chain technology, it is evident that the MAP Protocol team is driven by a culture led by geek engineers and researchers, with a strong emphasis on technical prowess. While token listing is a direct means of native fundraising for Web3 projects, institutional investors often bring valuable partnerships. The expectation is that the MAP Protocol team will continue to explore collaborations with institutional investors, leveraging their expertise and resources.

06 The Ecology

Mainnet and Public Chains

MAP Protocol’s groundbreaking and innovative design in cross-chain technology allows various blockchains to interconnect freely and securely, though this solution posed significant challenges in both research and engineering development. After nearly four years of development, the MAP Relay Chain mainnet was officially released at the end of August 2022. The integration of prominent L1 blockchains into the cross-chain network is set to be officially launched by the end of the year, marking the official commencement of MAP Protocol operations.

Several well-known validator service providers, including Ankr, InfStones, HashQuark, Citadel.One, Ugaenn, Neuler, and Allnodes, have joined the validation process of the MAP Relay Chain. Core technical public blockchains such as NEAR, Flow, Polygon, Iotex, Harmony, and others have officially expressed their support and endorsement for MAP Protocol’s technical solutions and have already integrated with MAP Protocol. As of early November 2022, interoperability testing and CertiK audits for cross-chain connections with ETHW, Ethereum 2.0, NEAR, BNB Chain, Klaytn, and Polygon are in progress, with the expected launch before the end of the year. Following the roadmap, thriving L1 and L2 chains like Solana, Aptos, Sui, IoTeX, Flow, Harmony, AVAX, Fantom, XRP, etc., are scheduled to go live progressively by the second quarter of 2023.

Applications currently under development based on MAP Protocol technology primarily focus on DeFi and GameFi projects, as well as on-chain data initiatives.

Here list some representative applications:

Application

Omnichain Payment System: Butter Network

Butter Network positions itself as the Visa or Stripe of the crypto space, aiming to provide developers and users with a seamless decentralized omnichain payment experience. For instance, in GameFi NFT sales, revenue losses ranging from 30% to 50% occur in the collection process due to limited supported currencies and cross-chain payment barriers. By establishing omnichain payments through MAP Protocol, these losses can be significantly reduced. Similar to how European tourists can spend in Singapore using their Euro bank cards without the need for currency exchange, the restaurant owner in Singapore receives payment in Singapore Dollars.

Butter successfully built a fully decentralized cross-chain aggregated liquidity exchange network using the omnichain infrastructure provided by MAP Protocol. With payment products tailored to dApps, Butter can comprehensively offer decentralized payment infrastructure services, greatly enhancing the convenience of GameFi, NFT sales, and decentralized wallet exchanges.

GameFi Services: Plyverse

Plyverse is a platform for the GameFi industry, serving both consumers (C-end) and businesses (B-end). On the C-end, Plyverse leverages big data technology and the power of decentralized DAO to provide GameFi players with a curated and rated gateway to GameFi, eliminating user confusion when choosing GameFi projects. On the B-end, Plyverse offers an SDK wallet for GameFi developers, utilizing the underlying technology of MAP Protocol, enabling GameFi to easily achieve omnichain coverage for distribution.

On-chain Oracle: SaaS3

Oracles serve as a bridge between blockchain and the real world, but off-chain oracles introduce ambiguity and privileged roles, contradicting the decentralized spirit of blockchain and compromising cross-chain verification security. SaaS3’s on-chain oracle solution aims to address this issue by securely and decentralizely transmitting real-world data and computations to the blockchain world. Leveraging MAP Protocol, SaaS3 can interconnect with major L1s, allowing L1 data to flow across the entire chain in the form of on-chain oracles. This helps dApp developers seamlessly deploy SaaS3’s serverless operating system, linking it to the desired chain.

ENS Service: Unstoppable Domain

Unstoppable Domain is a Web3 identity application platform dedicated to creating unique domain names for individuals, facilitating better management of their digital identity in Web3. By choosing a word and appending ‘.x’ or ‘.crypto’, users can obtain their domain name NFT on the blockchain, stored as a regular username in their wallet. Currently, over 2.5 million domains have been registered by UD users, with 1 million on Ethereum’s L2 Polygon.

While the method of creating domain name NFTs has made Web3 interactions smoother, the use cases for single-chain domains remain somewhat limited in a multi-chain environment. Unstoppable Domain is currently collaborating with MAP Protocol to expand the use cases of Web3 domains, offering users the ease of interaction with NFT domains and the convenient security of cross-chain transactions simultaneously.

DID: Litentry

Litentry is a decentralized identity aggregation protocol in the Polkadot ecosystem. It aims to help users maximize the value of their on-chain identities by aggregating personal data from Web2 service providers, various Web3 public chains, and centrally stored data, all while preserving privacy and anonymity. DeFi credit lending is a crucial use case for Litentry. Through mutual logins and the exchange of credit data across different public chains, users can choose to synchronize their data from other chains as part of their credit history. In order to expedite the implementation of this scenario, MAP Protocol has collaborated with Litentry to establish interoperability for cross-chain identity data, assisting users in creating diverse decentralized identities.

Wallet: BeFi Wallet

BeFi Wallet is a multi-chain wallet application based on the MAP Relay Chain, designed for dApps, DeFi, and NFTs. With BeFi Wallet, users can securely and conveniently transfer funds, store or purchase NFTs, connect to Web3 blockchain games, and log in to various dApps. Currently, BeFi Wallet has attracted over 700,000 users, with an average daily active user (DAU) count exceeding 20,000.

DAO: Clique

Clique is an all-in-one DAO tool introduced by Verse Network. Through Clique, DAOs and projects on Ethereum can participate in decentralized on-chain governance without the need to transfer their tokens. It serves as an innovative solution for DAO governance. Through MAP Protocol, Clique will support more EVM chains and their tokens, while also bridging connections to Klaytn and BNB Chain, further expanding its existing community and dApp ecosystem.

Community

In terms of language and region, MAP Protocol’s community is quite international. Its Korean Kakao community has nearly 10,000 members, the English Telegram community has over 30,000 members, the Turkish community has more than 4,000 members, the Russian community has over 3,000 members, and the Vietnamese community has around 2,000 members. Overall, the MAP Protocol community has significant participation from English, Korean, Turkish, Russian, Indonesian, and Vietnamese speakers. The main platforms for community engagement are as follows:

Twitter: MAP Protocol’s Twitter account was registered in 2019, but its activity significantly increased after the mainnet launch. Currently, MAP Protocol’s Twitter has over 100,000 followers, with each tweet having an impact of over 5%.

Discord: MAP Protocol’s Discord community was only opened this year, and the number of members has not yet reached 2,000, but the community management is robust. Based on Discord settings, the team is likely to announce a series of activities targeting the community and developers within the Discord community, further engaging the community.

1. Market Competition

In the application of cross-chain technology, MAP Protocol has chosen the omnichain field, making it more attractive to dApps compared to Cosmos and Polkadot, which also rely on light node validation. This is because Cosmos and Polkadot require dApps to build their own L1 for their dedicated application chains, while MAP Protocol is an omnichain infrastructure that allows dApps to cover users and assets on all chains. The following is a comparative analysis of Polkadot and Cosmos.

Polkadot and Cosmos

Polkadot and Cosmos are discussed together here because their mechanisms are quite similar: 1) Both have a chain creation tool, and the L1 generated by this tool is an application-specific chain; 2) Both Polkadot and Cosmos only support cross-chain interactions between chains generated by their chain creation tools, and cross-chain operations must be done within their SDKs. Additionally, neither of them supports smart contracts on their relay chains.

Polkadot chain development tool Substrate: from Blockchain Simplified

Cosmos Chain Creation Tool Tendermint (Source: Cosmos Blog)

As pioneers in the field of cross-chain technology, when Polkadot and Cosmos were founded, there were not many Layer 1 (L1) blockchains in the blockchain space. Both projects developed their own chain creation tools—Substrate for Polkadot and Tendermint for Cosmos. Using these chain creation tools, developers could quickly launch their own blockchain. These L1 blockchains, after integrating cross-chain SDKs at the blockchain’s core, could achieve interoperability with other blockchains generated using the same chain creation tool, either through the Polkadot relay chain or the Cosmos Hub. Through this chain creation and cross-chain logic, Polkadot and Cosmos attracted many developers, forming relatively rich ecosystems, with Polkadot currently owing over 100 applications and services, while Cosmos 263.

However, mainstream Layer 1 blockchains cannot interoperate with both Polkadot and Cosmos. dApps on Polkadot and Cosmos face challenges in connecting with users and assets on other blockchains. At the same time, both projects also encounter challenges related to operability and convenience.

1. Polkadot relay chain and Cosmos Hub are not Turing complete and cannot compile smart contracts. This means that developers working on asset cross-chain aggregations are unable to build native omnichain applications.
3. For both Polkadot and Cosmos, their cross-chain SDKs need to be integrated at the core level of other chains. Additionally, for other heterogeneous chains—such as Ethereum, BNB, Klaytn, Polygon, Avax, and other blockchains generated by tools other than the respective chain creation tools—these chains need to actively modify their underlying blockchain structures to make them homogenous with Polkadot and Cosmos. Only then can the SDK be integrated at the core level to achieve cross-chain functionality. However, modifying the underlying structure is an extremely complex task, and currently, there are no thriving Layer 1 blockchains that have achieved interoperability with the Polkadot relay chain and Cosmos Hub.
5. To establish interoperability with the Polkadot relay chain, it is necessary to delegate the right to validate transactions to the relay chain, implying that the security must be entrusted to the relay chain. This is something other ecologically thriving Layer 1 blockchains cannot accept.
7. For dApp developers, using Polkadot and Cosmos requires building a dedicated Layer 1 first and then deploying the dApp on that self-constructed Layer 1. However, building a personal Layer 1 is not the core requirement for dApps; reaching a broader user and asset base is. Whether it is considered from the perspectives of development cost and learning cost, or from security level, the development path of building Layer 1 first and then seeking cross-chain interoperability with users and assets on other chains is not cost-effective.

Therefore, while Polkadot and Cosmos employ the light client cross-chain mechanism and are indeed secure, they appear more like constructing a vast internal ecosystem. However, their overall performance in achieving true interconnection and expansion of the dApp ecosystem is not ideal. The design structure and technical mechanisms of both make it challenging for them to interconnect and communicate with thriving blockchains like Ethereum and BNB. For dApps, although both provide convenient chain creation tools, they have not effectively addressed the demands for user and asset coverage.

Aurora

NEAR Rainbow Bridge Cross-Chain Mechanism (Source: NEAR)

In the landscape where the term “bridge” has taken a more ominous tone due to security incidents, there is one cross-chain bridge that has yet to experience a hacking incident. This is the NEAR Rainbow Bridge, which adopts a light client cross-chain mechanism and is built on the Aurora infrastructure. While this approach maximizes security, Aurora exhibits some weaknesses in terms of connectivity and convenience.

Currently, the NEAR Rainbow Bridge only supports cross-chain transfers from Ethereum to NEAR and does not support cross-chain transfers between other blockchains and NEAR. Regarding supported tokens, the NEAR Rainbow Bridge facilitates one-way cross-chain transfers for all tokens from Ethereum to NEAR. However, only a few tokens can undergo cross-chain transfers from NEAR to Ethereum. Additionally, due to Aurora’s lack of the ed25519 precompiled contract (already integrated into the MAP Relay Chain), the cross-chain solution from NEAR to Ethereum adopts an optimistic mode rather than an automated ledger alignment solution, requiring a waiting period of 4 hours for cross-chain confirmation of a transaction.

LayerZero

As mentioned earlier, LayerZero addresses the issues in the MPC cross-chain mechanism, optimizing the cost-effectiveness of cross-chain operations, making it an competitive player in the cross-chain competition. However, as stated in its whitepaper, there may be collusion risks in its cross-chain mechanism involving oracles and relayers. Moreover, the security of the verification method employing super-light nodes, oracles, and relayers has yet to be proven: Alexander Egberts, a researcher from the Max Planck Society, noted in a report that using oracles is like “taking two steps back in decentralization.” Additionally, the use of oracles brings two main problems: first, oracles cannot achieve precision in the data feeding process, causing significant challenges for the development of on-chain data applications; second, there are engineering obstacles in aligning and verifying heterogeneous ledger data during cross-chain data transmission, making it unsupportive of heterogeneous chains. In today’s established multi-chain landscape, LayerZero fails to provide demonstrable security guarantees and faces challenges in dispelling dApp concerns regarding its technical advantages.

However, in terms of market funding, LayerZero has a strong appeal, backed by powerful investors such as FTX and A16Z. According to DeFi Lama’s October data, the Total Value Locked (TVL) of Stargate, a cross-chain stablecoin exchange application in the LayerZero ecosystem, has already exceeded $450 million. Therefore, from the perspective of expanding the MAP Protocol ecosystem, LayerZero represents a formidable competitor.

8. Risk

Security

MAP Protocol boasts demonstrable security and adheres to the principles of the Nakamoto consensus. It relies on independently verifying light nodes for cross-chain validation, making it appear as one of the safest and most cost-effective solutions in the cross-chain race. However, like any solution, it is not immune to potential attacks. If the MAP Relay Chain undergoes a fork, the security of this cross-chain solution could be compromised. Additionally, as a Proof-of-Stake (POS) mechanism, there is a risk of validators behaving maliciously in the MAP Protocol Relay Chain.

Nevertheless, MAP Protocol’s comprehensive security design helps mitigate these risks. Fork security risks can be entirely avoided by configuring trusted nodes. Regarding the risk of malicious validators, participation in the mainnet governance as a validator requires a stake of at least 1 million $MAP, and for a fork to occur, over 70% of the nodes must agree, making it challenging in terms of computational power. Therefore, like all Layer 1 (L1) public chains, while MAP Protocol is not entirely immune to attacks, its security mechanisms are among the most robust.

Multi-Chain Landscape

The competition among various blockchains is a necessary condition for the development of omnichain infrastructure. If the coexistence of multiple chains cannot be sustained, user demand for cross-chain solutions may decrease. However, in practice, the ongoing issues with Ethereum’s fee performance and the popularity of new public chains have already fostered user habits of participating in multiple chains. Therefore, we believe that the likelihood of the disappearance of a multi-chain landscape is minimal.

1. Evaluation

Bohao Tang, the Chief Developer at Flow, has provided the following evaluation of MAP Protocol’s omnichain expansion: “MAP Protocol is helping Flow build the infrastructure for an omnichain application experience. With its characteristic of having no privileged role in the cross-chain verification process and covering all EVM and non-EVM chains, we believe it can bring a more diverse and vibrant range of possibilities to the Flow ecosystem.”

Professor Liu Yang, Director of the Network Security Laboratory at Nanyang Technological University, also believes that MAP Protocol’s omnichain interoperability is safer, more compatible, and more friendly to dApps compared to other cross-chain solutions:

“With its mature, innovative, and stable cross-chain solution design, MAP Protocol enables secure and seamless cross-chain communication and asset transfer between EVM and non-EVM chains. Compared to centralized cross-chain solutions without relay chains, such as Axelar and Celer, MAP Protocol’s relay chain is not only easy to expand in a multi-chain architecture but also avoids the risk of super administrators controlling inter-chain communication.

Compared to the decentralized solutions of Polkadot and Cosmos that use relay chains, MAP Protocol uniquely incorporates zero-knowledge proof solutions. It verifies inter-chain messages using lightweight clients existing in the form of smart contracts. This lightweight implementation not only eliminates the need for SDK embedding and structural compatibility at the underlying level for heterogeneous chains but also ensures the security and confidentiality of inter-chain message passing, making it almost blockchain-agnostic and interoperable.

Most importantly, MAP Protocol’s innovative cross-chain design allows dApps to be developed directly on the relay chain and deployed natively. By integrating assets from various blockchains, the MAP Relay Chain becomes a crucial component for cross-chain asset and data interaction and has the potential to be proven as the true future of cross-chain solutions.”

1. Conclusion

We believe that the MAP Protocol has unparalleled advantages in the field of cross-chain communication solutions. It stands out as the only solution in the current cross-chain race capable of achieving omnichain coverage, reaching 100% blockchain cross-chain verification based on the Satoshi consensus level, and providing the highest level of security for an omnichain infrastructure. MAP Protocol successfully addresses the industry-wide issues of privileged roles and the inability to connect with all thriving Layer 1 blockchains.

This achievement is a result of the MAP Protocol team’s deep understanding and innovation in blockchain security and mathematics. Their commitment to redeveloping and their steadfast approach contribute to providing dApps with a more secure, efficient, cost-effective, and resource-rich omnichain ecosystem. Additionally, it offers users a smoother and more capital-efficient omnichain experience.

MAP Protocol’s omnichain infrastructure services are set to officially launch before the end of 2022. As a uniquely innovative omnichain infrastructure project tailored for dApps, the launch of MAP Protocol is expected to bring significant changes to the industry. Investors and users alike can anticipate and keep a close eye on the promising developments ahead.

Reference:

“Episode 93: Light Clients & Zkps with Celo.” ZK Podcast, 10 Aug. 2021, https://zeroknowledge.fm/93-2/.

Team, Chainalysis. “Cross-Chain Bridge Hacks Emerge as Top Security Risk.” Chainalysis, 10 Aug. 2022. https://blog.chainalysis.com/reports/cross-chain-bridge-hacks-2022/.

Zarick, Ryan, et al. “LayerZero: Trustless Omnichain InteroperabilityProtocol.” https://Layerzero.network/, 26 May 2021, https://layerzero.network/pdf/LayerZero_Whitepaper_Release.pdf.

Nakamoto, S. (2008) Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System. https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Caldarelli G. Understanding the Blockchain Oracle Problem: A Call for Action. Information. 2020; 11(11):509. https://doi.org/10.3390/info11110509

Egberts, A. The Oracle Problem—An Analysis of how Blockchain Oracles Undermine the Advantages of Decentralized Ledger Systems. SSRN Electron. J. 2017.

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