MAP Protocol: The Future of Cross-Chain — by Jay, Marketing Director AMA Recap
By: Map Protocol
Tags: Crosschain, Map Protocol, Blockchain, Maps

At 4 o’clock in the afternoon on August 19th, MAP community welcomed the guest Jay, Marketing Director of MAP Protocol, sharing the topic: The Future of Cross-Chain

The AMA started with sharing with the community on MAP Protocol new revamp websites and cross-chain solution upgrades. MAP Protocol also has just revamped our new official website, from ‘Chain-to-chain Interoperation Protocol’ to our new slogan ‘Blockchain Assets Freeway’.

The following was recorded of the guest sharing:

Qn: Following the boom of DeFi development, we have seen security breaches on DeFi, for instance, hacking incidents which caused eye opening uneasiness across the crypto space. First incident involving Chainswap, suffered an exploit resulting in $8mil worth of losses. After Chainswap, Anyswap made an announcement that the new V3 cross-chain liquidity pools have been affected, resulting in a total loss of 2.4mil USDC and 5.5mil MIM respectively. On 10Aug, Poly Network was hacked and $611mil worth of crypto assets were pilfered off in what it could be the largest DeFi hack in history.

We have seen frequent security breaches/hacks on cross-chain projects, what is your view on this?

Ans: Based on analysis of results shown from recent hacking incidents, firstly, it was due to loopholes found on smart contracts and in the protocol itself. Secondly, the cross-chain private key management was not in place.

The MAP contract is an account without special authority management and is decentralized.

Where mass assets are controlled by a handful of operators, we are building a whole solution in a more trustless and decentralized way. Users’ assets are guarded by transparent and bulletproof smart contracts where the movement of assets can only be triggered by cross-chain messages backed up by valid cryptographic proofs. The verification of the cryptographic proof is based on the light clients maintained by the MAP chain. Using a dedicated blockchain to maintain all the light clients gives MAP protocol the flexibility to integrate necessary features to connect to all kinds of blockchains that might come up.

Let’s describe through an example. To interoperate with Cosmos Hub, following the interchain standards specified in github.com/cosmos/ibc, we are able to build a module for MAP chain to do cross-chain communication, and with the reference to the paper “A Tendermint Light Client” by Braithwaite et al., a light client for Cosmos Hub can be built and maintained.

Qn: As we all know MAP Protocol is a cross-chain based infrastructure layer project and it has been around for more than 2 years. Can you tell us why MAP Protocol chose this cross-chain track? And how does this bring significant impact to the blockchain industry?

Ans: Following the development of blockchain technology, there are many public chain unicorns with large amount of funds in the market. At the meantime, the assets size of these public chains are increasing exponentially every day. However, there is one big problem, they are all built and developed on own their silo chain, assets on different chains cannot be freely exchanged and circulated. Many of the emerging public chains are still lacking in this infrastructure.

Therefore, each public chain needs to introduce assets on other chains into its own public chain through cross-chain, in order to break the information silo between chains.

When there is no cross-chain, users’ assets cannot be interoperable, just like putting money on two islands, and the conversion process is complicated.

First, to deposit the assets of Ethereum into the exchange, sell on exchange and exchange for MATIC tokens, followed by withdrawing MATIC tokens to the Polygon chain and exchange the assets needed through centralized exchange. Only then the user can participate in mining. This process is inefficient and time consuming. Therefore, a cross-chain bridge is needed for direct assets exchange.

Cross-chain, refers to a system that can support transfer of encrypted assets between different blockchains. Cross-chain can be realized through asset migration between all different blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, realizing through interconnection of blockchain. Through cross-chain, two chains with different protocols, rules and governance models can be safely interoperate and exchange assets through a cross-chain bridge.

Qn: Sounds great!! Decentralized cross-chain solution seems to be the next big thing! Can you share with us more about the new version of MAP Protocol?

Ans: Okay. First and foremost, what is MAP Protocol? Map Protocol is the ‘Blockchain Assets Freeway’. Map Protocol is a cross-chain bridging protocol tool that aims to be a secure end-to-end solution for any blockchain to move assets freely. To fulfil this role, MAP protocol is built on three layers simultaneously.

Qn: Can you tell us more about these three layers of MAP protocol?

Ans: Firstly, the MAP Chain. A dedicated blockchain served as the infrastructure freeway connecting all kinds of blockchains to break the barriers.

Secondly, the MAP Assets layer where all kinds of assets are mapped to MAP chain in a non-custodial style via trustless smart contract.

Thirdly, the DeFi Application layer that allows all kinds of applications including but not limited to DEXs, games and NFTs can be built with the cross-chain capabilities enabled by the MAP chain and MAP assets.

MAP Protocol’s 3-Layer Structure

You can imagine these three layers as a three-lane highway where first is the MAP chain layer (to swap tokens like Ethereum, COSMO, Polygon and etc), second layer is the Asset Vaults (to swap ERC-20 tokens etc) and third is the DeFi Applications layers (swap through wallets, Telegram, DEXs etc)

Qn: What is the core characteristic of MAP Protocol three layers’ system?

Ans:

1) MAP Chain — Maintaining light client of interested blockchains is the foundation of cross-chain verification.

2) MAP Assets — One-stop boundless assets transfer by wrapping all assets on MAP chain.

3) DeFi Application — Fast trades of NFT tokens in cross-chain decentralized manner and applications can be easily built with the underlying light client and assets vault.

Qn: What is the main key advantages of MAP Protocol now?

Ans: The four main key advantages in MAP cross-chain upgrades are;

1) Decentralized: it is secured by 100+ validators and maintained by thousands of relayers.

2) Trustless: driven only by cryptographic proof other than human decision.

3) Randomness: unbiased on-chain randomness is supported by thousands of relayers.

4) Feeless: nearly-zero fees for cross-chain assets transfer or swap by MAP token compensation.

Qn: What is the new roadmap of MAP Protocol?

Ans: Currently we are in the midst of testnet testing. We hope all of you can participate later on.

Qn: What is the current plan and future plan of MAP Protocol?

Ans: MAP upgrades & launch Relayers

One of the most distinctive features in MAP chain is that the network is maintained by thousands of relayers and secured by 100+ validators in order to achieve distribution of trust and moving towards increasing decentralization. Due to the vital position of the relayers, all relayers in MAP protocol are incentivised by measuring the work completed.

We are launching Relayer very soon. All users will be able to participate and earn high MAP token rewards.

Meaning to say, you as a user can run as a Relayer on MAP Chain, and you will be incentivised with MAP token after complete works done. Yeah😊

Prior to the launch, we will invite 10 persons to be the first 10 relayers as volunteers, starting tomorrow.

We encourage everyone to register and participate, do reach out to our Community Manager if you’re interested to be a relayer on MAP Protocol.

Community Q&A session:

Q1: What are your plans in place for global expansion, are you focusing on only market at this time?

Currently MAP large number of users mainly from Asia. We are expanding our footprint into US and Europe region to cooperate with many of first line media and KOLs etc..

Q2: What is the main difference between the MAP bridge solution and other bridge solutions?

Unlike other inter-blockchain communication projects, where mass assets are controlled by a handful of operators, we are building a whole solution in a more trustless and decentralized way.

1) MAP Protocol solution is more decentralized. It is secured by 100+ staked validators and maintained by 1000+ relayers. This is to preserve the features towards decentralization.

2) On-chain Randomness. Relayers can participate in the on-chain random number generation process by submitting a random number of their own. All random numbers submitted will be merged to forge true on-chain randomness to support various DeFi applications.

Q3: When will the mainnet be completed?

The estimated timeline is in Q4 2021. MAP team will deliver according to the roadmap as planned!

For more information, visit maplabs.io