Cross Chain Messaging Standard Created By Solana-Based Team Up

Notifi Network, Bonfida and Only1 are leading an “Open Chat Alliance”

A crypto standard for messaging is on the horizon. A group of projects all based on the Solana blockchain are working towards streamlining communications in the crypto sphere. This new communications protocol will be created via open-sourced standards and those in favor of the platform believe it will break down further walls between chains and projects.

The project is being called the “Open-Chat Alliance” and debuted this past Tuesday with a buy-in from a total of 19 projects all on the Solana chain. Some of the biggest names on the alliance are Notifi Network which words to embed notifications and cross chain messaging into decentralized apps, Bonfida which is the Solana Name Service provider, and the NFT powered social media platform Only1. The alliance has a plan to create a messaging system with an interoperable standard for handling crypto messages.

The problem that the alliance mostly wants to tackle is what has been dubbed a “wallet gardens” problem by Notif CEO Paul Kim. The problem is when a user joins a project they are walled into that particular project and unable to communicate or deal with any other user that is not on that project, this can create what is called siloed communication as the user is bound to that one platform or project.

For those not familiar with web3, this is not ideal as the entire idea of web3 is freedom , decentralization, and interoperability. To have something closed off and unavailable does not mesh well with web3 philosophy so a cross-chain , cross-platform, cross-project form of communication would be ideal.

There are other projects that have focused on interoperability and cross-chain communications. Chainlink has its own cross-chain system and Cosmos is based on the idea of inter-blockchain communication.

In speaking on the project’s goals the alliance stated that creating a form of communications standard for projects on different chains to be able to utilize is paramount. The goal is to create this standard that can be used despite tech differences in blockchains.

An example of this cross communication would be GameFi and NFT users across different chains being able to communicate freely with each other with the wallet being used as the passport for communication.Imagine a Bored Ape holder freely communicating with an Okay Bears holder across chains.

This idea is valid but there is sure to be certain issues that can arise from such an endeavor. Recently blockchains like Solana have suffered many hacks and attacks resulting in users losing tokens or having their entire wallets drained. Cross-chain can open up more users to hackers and their exploits. 

The Poly network suffered a $600 million attack after a cross-chain message. Bridges between two chains are often attacked as can be seen in the attack on the Ronin wallet that saw $625 million stolen, finally there was an attack on Nomad which resulted in $200 million stolen as well.The potential for loss is high when cross-chain is involved. 

The alliance plans for the cross-chain initiative to be used for messaging only and not transactions. Projects that are taking part of the initiative are mostly DeFi and NFT related with more projects potentially signing up.

As the metaverse grows and projects such as metalinq continue to build on interoperability, ideas such as cross-chain communication have become more popular and necessary. Security needs to be tight but communication is always a top priority when it comes to web3.

Leave a Reply