Integrate all Bitcoin FORKs on ICP [BCH, DOGE, DASH, etc...]

Hi, as I am not fluent in english, i am sorry if my english is not good, I just hope you’ll understand my idea.

As Ethereum has already its own smart contract, and as it’s a lot of work to integrate it in ICP, I wonder why we do not integrate all Bitcoin FORK on ICP First…

As these crypto (BTC Forks) are similar, maybe I am wrong, but I though it could mean less work to do to integrate them once it’s done for Bitcoin. Once Bitcoin is integrated to ICP, you could add BCH, DASH, DOGE, Maybe LTC, etc… All these coin don’t have Smart Contract, can’t be swapped easily or safely in a decentralized way… Then, if ICP could Hold real BCH, BTC, DOGE or DASH wallet, it could be amazing because this would make it possible to swap between these cryptocurrencies… Lot of possibility, real NEW and useful features, lot of liquidity, lot of community, lot of advertisement (doge community…)

If integrate all Bitcoin Fork can be done as fast as Only ETH, I think it’s 100x better and more useful…

These crypto have low fees and it will be easier pour les gens de les amener sur l’ICP… The vast majority of people don’t move easily ERC-20 token with the actual insane fees…

More of that ETH may need to be modified in future (problem of compatibility with ICP integration), so I am not sure it’s the best moment to integrate it…

However, I am not alone to decide and I would appreciate to submit this proposal to the community.

Please, Share your thoughts, thank you.

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Good idea. I vote for Doge :dog:

The more, the better .I think .

I think that the simple math OF BTC+ETH controlling 61% of total crypto market cap today is the key. This is because the implied liquidity for many projects would be too great as compared including one-offs for a set of tokens.

The only way that this debate could be settled would be through actual use-cases that either of the two approaches would benefit (DOGE/LTC/DASH vs ETH).

2 Likes

I think it all depends on how easy it is to integrate. Doge would be a big attention win. If you want visibility into the IC eco we need Doge. And we need to be humble about it. There is too much division in crypto. It is time to build together.

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Stop. I’m getting too excited…

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First of all, let me wish everyone here on the forum a Happy New Year!

This is an exciting discussion! Thanks for creating the forum topic on this issue.
Actually, this is something we have been thinking about in one form or another in our “General Integration” long-term R&D motion proposal. See Long Term R&D: General Integration (Proposal) - #4 by dieter.sommer, “Blockchain integrations.”

There are different options on how to integrate with other blockchains / cryptocurrencies:

On the two extremes ends of the spectrum we have the following:

  • Bridging
    • Pros
      • Easy to implement
      • Everybody in the community can implement it
    • Cons
      • Additional assumptions are required
      • Additional parties (bridges) are required
      • Less secure overall
  • Direct integration (like we are doing for Bitcoin)
    • Pros
      • No additional trust assumptions required
      • No additional parties required
      • Implementation might be able to reuse what has been done for Bitcoin (it’s still unclear to me how far that reusability goes as Bitcoin-like protocols do not use the exact same code as Bitcoin, but have forked off some time back and lack many improvements and fixes made for Bitcoin)
    • Cons
      • Harder to implement
      • Only the Foundation can implement it
      • Might make the generic implementation more complex by accounting for the specifics of the individual blockchains (to be discussed, how much difference there is in practice)

There is a middle ground between the two above (closer to the direct integration):

  • Relay-based integration (Relays external to the IC submit blocks of the to-be-integrated blockchain to a canister and receive transactions from it to send back to the other blockchain)
    • Pros
      • Easier to implement than a direct integration
      • Can be implement by anyone in the community
      • Uses threshold ECSDA for signing transactions on the integrated blockchain, thus it still features a strong trust model
    • Cons
      • Requires additional external parties (relays)
      • This requires additional assumptions on the availability of parties and their proper behaviour, but much less compared to a bridge

The creator of this topic suggests a direct integration, what do people think about the different options given here and their suitability for an integration with other Bitcoin-like blockchains?

By the way, any ERC-20 token available on Ethereum can be made available on the IC soon using the Terabethia bridge (see, e.g., Terabethia: Bridging Contracts & Assets Across Ethereum and the Internet Computer 🌉 | by Terabethia | Terabethia | Dec, 2021 | Medium) that will be released shortly by Fleek. The native integration with Ethereum the Foundation is planning will also bring ERC-20 tokens to the IC as a side effect, however, this will still take quite some time. Both have the drawback that not all cryptocurrencies of interest are available as wrapped ERC-20 tokens AFAIK and, if they are, they are bridged and not directly integrated. Also, transferring them to the IC and back to Ethereum will require Ethereum gas and thus incur some cost.

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Both have the drawback that not all cryptocurrencies of interest are available as wrapped ERC-20 tokens AFAIK and, if they are, they are bridged and not directly integrated.

I thought only Terabethia would have the drawback of bridging ERC-20 tokens. Wouldn’t the native ETH integration not face this issue? (i.e. the ERC-20 tokens would be directly available to canisters)

My original explanation was indeed a bit vague, hope this makes it clearer:
Yes, indeed, with the direct integration, the ERC-20 tokens are directly available without a bridge. But those ERC-20 tokens that are wrapped tokens of some cryptocurrency from another blockchain are most likely bridged over to Ethereum due to the lack of alternatives. That is, those are bridged once even though they are directly transferred to the IC, so still not an optimal trust model as the chain of transfers of a token is only as strong as its weakest link. So those tokens could be called “transitively bridged” (I made this term up right now, but it describes it well).

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Ah yeah, you’re referring to tokens like Wrapped Bitcoin and others. Nothing the IC can do about that besides directly integrate with the underlying blockchain that was being wrapped, like DFINITY is currently doing with Bitcoin. :man_shrugging:

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Exactly, that was the reasoning!