Guest blog: collaborating on Cardano interoperability

Original author:

Temujin Louie - Director of Marketing, Wanchain

Originally published on IOHK.io: April 27th, 2022

Summary:

Today we’re announcing new interoperability solutions between Cardano and EVM blockchains.

Article:

At Wanchain, we believe in the importance of decentralization and have a clear vision of a future where the global blockchain landscape behaves as a beautiful, singular, interoperable network. We’re particularly excited to take another important step in this direction, and today we can share the news that we are enabling interoperability between the Cardano mainnet, Cardano sidechains, and other blockchain networks.

These efforts will see the deployment of decentralized, non-custodial, bi-directional cross-chain bridges connecting Cardano to other layer 1 blockchains. Wanchain bridge nodes will be upgraded to further secure Cardano’s cross-chain bridges and transactions and Wanchain will become an EVM-compatible sidechain to Cardano.

Wanchain is both a sustainable layer 1 proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain and a decentralized interoperability solution. The Wanchain layer 1 PoS blockchain is a full Ethereum-like environment that works with industry standard Ethereum tools, DApps and protocols. Importantly, it shares some common ground with Cardano. Wanchain uses a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm called Galaxy Consensus that leverages a variety of cryptographic schemes, including distributed secret sharing and threshold signatures to improve random number generation and block production mechanisms. Galaxy Consensus, developed by world-class researchers and academics, is a continuation of Cardano’s own Ouroboros.

Meanwhile, Wanchain bridges are decentralized, direct, non-custodial bridges that connect both EVM and non-EVM networks without requiring any relay chains or intermediary networks. These bridges use a combination of Secure Multiparty Computation (sMPC) and Shamir's Secret Sharing (SSS) to secure cross-chain assets. Currently, more than fifteen layer 1 and layer 2 networks (and counting!) are connected by Wanchain’s network of blockchains.

By turning Wanchain into an EVM-compatible sidechain to Cardano, Cardano DApp developers and users will gain access to more coding languages, frameworks and integrated developer environments. Furthermore, not only does this novel approach maximize the security of Cardano’s interoperability solution, it also doubles as a scalability solution. Transactions can now safely be moved off Cardano, recording only the vital information on the layer 1 blockchain to ensure security and immutability.

This sidechain approach heralds a new era for Cardano, as it begins to transition into a fully-fledged multi-chain ecosystem with greater security and scalability.

Hopefully this is just the beginning of a longer term collaboration between Wanchain and Input Output and we look forward to sharing more updates soon.

Learn more about Wanchain and the project on April’s Cardano360 show, where Wanchain’s VP of Engineering Dr Weijia Zhang will be appearing as a special guest.