Quick Overview of Solana Cross-Chain Bridge "Zeus" Architecture and Token Economics

Forward the Original Title‘能将BTC带入SOL？速览Solana跨链桥「Zeus」架构、代币经济学..’

If BTC assets are left idle in a wallet, it seems inefficient in the pursuit of high returns. Over the last cycle, many projects aimed to bring BTC into Ethereum to maximize capital efficiency, such as Bradger and wBTC.

Now, with the growing prosperity of the Solana ecosystem, bringing BTC into Solana’s DeFi space has also emerged. As one of the outstanding players in this field, Zeus ranks at the top of the voting leaderboard on the Jupiter launchpad platform. Why does it enjoy such high popularity?

Introduction to Zeus

Zeus is a cross-chain communication network aimed at facilitating permissionless communication between the Solana and Bitcoin ecosystems. The ecosystem primarily consists of two major DeFi suites: Apollo and Artemis. Apollo is mainly responsible for bringing BTC into Solana.

Apollo brings liquidity from BTC into Solana by issuing 1:1 anchored zBTC tokens. Liquidity providers on Chain A do not need to return their liquidity to Chain B; the assets are locked and protected by the protocol. The APOLLO framework includes bidirectional hooks (2WP), liquidity management, and revenue management. APOLLO acts as an integrator of decentralized liquidity management and also serves as the custodian of zBTC.

Flexible hot/cold reserve designs facilitate the management of the 1:1 hook, where the circulating supply of zBTC is closely related to the total locked value (TVL) of SOL and LSD-SOL. Apollo will also launch its own token in the future.

After integration, zBTC can be utilized for lending and other purposes on platforms such as Solend, marginfi, and Kamino Finance, making BTC an income-generating asset. It is worth noting that users who participated in the Jupiter launchpad voting for Zeus will have priority access to the Apollo testnet.

According to official data, as of March 24th, the total value locked (TVL) has exceeded $13 million.

Zeus’ Architecture

The Zeus architecture mainly consists of four major components: validators, nodes, consensus mechanisms, and security mechanisms. Its validation process operates on a decentralized and permissionless group model. To become a validator, individuals need to run nodes.

The Zeus node system is composed of multiple integral components, including peer-to-peer, broadcast, signature (with signature aggregation), and other off-chain services, as well as dual-function registration services that can be executed both on-chain and off-chain. To enhance the system’s modular scalability, possible modifications include implementing alternative signature algorithms, integrating broadcast service interfaces to support different chains such as Bitcoin L2, EVM, MoveVM, and developing on-chain registration programs or smart contracts in various programming languages such as Solidity, Move, and more.

Regarding the consensus mechanism of Zeus, validators focus solely on validation, separate from on-chain transactions. Validators implement a threshold signature mechanism, utilizing the Schnorr signature for the Bitcoin main root. This concept extends to the Solana Ed25519 signature algorithm. Off-chain signature aggregation improves efficiency compared to on-chain voting, facilitating the smooth broadcasting of signature transactions to Solana. Additional layers of protection include fraud proofs and the assumption of honest validator behavior.

Economic security is reinforced through Slash design or programming. Operating under the assumption of honesty, the framework requires at least one honest validator, incentivizing each node to submit fraud proofs (identifying unauthorized transactions) to the program, thereby receiving a certain proportion of Slash funds as a reward.

To ensure the integrity of operations signed by Zeus validators, there is a “challenge period” following any such operation. This period includes operations such as locking and unlocking Bitcoin, Solana withdrawals, allocations, and minting or burning actions.

Tokenomics

The total supply of Zeus token economics is 1 billion, of which

• Ecosystem and Community Growth (45%): 10% allocated for Token Generation Event (TGE), with the remaining portion unlocked after 12 months;
• Foundation (20%): 10% allocated for TGE, with the remaining portion unlocked after 12 months;
• Team (15%): Unlocked after 15 months, released linearly over 15 months;
• Early Supporters (10%): 5% allocated for TGE, with the remaining portion unlocked after 3 months, released linearly over 15 months;
• Launchpad (5%): 100% allocated for TGE;
• Advisors (5%): 5% allocated for TGE, with the remaining portion unlocked after 6 months, released linearly over 15 months;

Additionally, Zeus Network will airdrop ZEUS to 300,291 unique addresses, including:

• 181,889 addresses that participated in the Jupiter LFG Launchpad voting;
• 114,772 zuPoint holders’ addresses;
• 3,630 Dappie Gang NFT holders’ addresses.

Tokens are used for a variety of purposes in the Zeus network, including activities such as executing Zeus nodes, fee sharing, staking for cross-chain fees (e.g. BTC), and more.

Roadmap

According to official documentation, Zeus’s primary goal is to launch node, ZEUS token staking, and BTC staking functionalities by the end of this year. Specifically, in the second quarter of this year, the “Muses Upgrade” will focus on developing Zeus nodes to ensure the smooth operation of the network. In the third quarter, the “Gaia Upgrade” will provide staking services for ZEUS and BTC to earn rewards. In the fourth quarter, the “Athena Upgrade” will mainly release programming libraries for ecosystem project development, including integrating browsers, collecting relay fees, and more.

Summary

Earlier this month, Zeus announced that it had received angel investments from three prominent figures in the industry: Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana; Andreem Kang, founder of Mechanism Capital; and Muneeb Ali, co-founder of Stacks. Their official tweet even hinted at a public offering on April 4th. With endorsements from notable figures in the Solana ecosystem, as well as the backing of the first launch project on Jupiter, the public offering event is expected to attract significant attention.

Disclaimer：

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