Zilliqa Announces Interoperability Alliance with Poly Network

Developed in collaboration with Poly Network, the interoperability bridge will allow free flow of assets cross-chain amongst Zilliqa, Ethereum, Neo, Ontology, Binance Smart Chain and so on

Zilliqa, the high-performance, high-security blockchain platform, has unveiled its plans to enable greater interoperability amongst the Zilliqa, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Neo, Ontology, Binance Smart Chain, Switcheo, Elrond and Huobi Eco Chain via the Poly Network bridge.

What is Poly Network?

Blockchains such as Zilliqa, Ethereum, Bitcoin, etc., are independent and disconnected networks. Their disconnectedness is mainly due to the fact they are very different systems in the way they validate transactions and store on-chain data. Also, the transaction format of one chain could be completely incompatible with the format of another one. Owing to these differences, blockchains form isolated islands with their own users, dapps and assets. This in turn makes it very difficult to move assets or data from one chain to another.

Poly Network solves this fundamental issue by creating an interoperability layer that connects several chains together in a decentralised manner. It provides a bridge that takes data or requests from one chain and passes it to another in the format the latter expects.

One primary usage of Poly Network is to allow asset transfers from one chain to another. For example, with the help of the Poly Network bridge, users can convert their Bitcoin from the Bitcoin chain to an equivalent ERC20 token on the Ethereum chain. Once the ERC20 version of Bitcoins are on the Ethereum chain, users or dapps can use them as if they were actual Bitcoins.

The bridge serves a more generic purpose than cross-chain asset transfers. For example, it could be used to pay dividends on a chain X to holders of an asset whose ownership is registered on another chain Y.

Benefits of Zilliqa bridging with Poly Network

The Zilliqa team is working on connecting with the Poly Network which will allow the Zilliqa chain to transitively connect to all the other chains that Poly Network itself is connected to which includes Bitcoin, Ethereum, NEO, Binance Smart Chain among others. This will be beneficial to both the Zilliqa community and the communities of the connecting chains in the following ways:

• Through the Poly Network bridge, token holders and developers alike will benefit from Zilliqa’s comparatively lower transaction fees. Furthermore, Zilliqa’s greater transaction throughput is designed to accommodate even the most complex contracts without diminishing speed, performance, and security. For example, once BTC is converted into a ZRC-20 token on top of Zilliqa, transferring those representations of Bitcoin will cost pennies compared to the fees that users would have paid had they made the transfer on the Bitcoin chain itself.
• With the bridge, developers will also be able to build cross-chain logic in their Scilla smart contracts in order to integrate them with smart contracts on all other supported blockchain.
• We will leverage these functionalities on our on-chain DEX ZilSwap, to bridge ERC20/BEP20/NEP5 assets to Zilliqa as ZRC-2 tokens. Switcheo’s DEX will also provide liquidity pairs which will enable users to earn trading fees and $ZWAP (Zilswap’s recently announced governance token) liquidity mining rewards.
• Conversely, $ZIL and ZRC-2 token holders will be able to bridge their tokens to Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain, and use these assets on DeFi products built on top of the partner chains. $ZIL and ZRC-2 assets can also be ported over to Switcheo TradeHub and be traded on Demex, a decentralised spot and derivatives exchange.

Creating a collaborative infrastructure is key to this industry’s growth, and the Poly Network Bridge is a testament to the progress being made on that front. Zilliqa — Poly Network bridge is currently under active development. Once the bridge is launched, users and developers for both Zilliqa and Ethereum ecosystems will be able to benefit from Zilswap’s cross-chain features.

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About Switcheo

Switcheo is the first decentralized cryptocurrency exchange on the Neo blockchain, which now allows trading of EOS, Ethereum, and NEO tokens. Switcheo’s goal is to achieve a DEX network with cross-chain swapping capabilities across multiple blockchains, with a focus on delivering a world-class trading experience in a fully trustless and decentralized environment. For more information, visit switcheo.exchange.

About Poly Network

Poly Network a groundbreaking heterogeneous interoperability protocol alliance, consisting of leading blockchain platforms such as Neo and Ontology. Poly Network already integrates Bitcoin, Ethereum, Neo, Ontology, BSC, Switcheo, Elrond, Heco, Ziliqa and aims to build the foundation for Next-gen Internet (NGI) by enabling greater integration, cooperation, and innovation. Representing both a technical breakthrough and a milestone for blockchain adoption, Poly Network is well positioned to become the pillar of NGI and the smart economy of tomorrow. For more information, visit poly.network.