Thank you for your reply.
Bitomni is a BTCFi-driven omnichain asset management protocol that offers a suite of BTCFi DApps, including BitoBridge, which serves as a foundational infrastructure for other BTCFi DApps. We are also developing a decentralized Bitcoin meta-protocol indexer, another critical infrastructure component.
chain fusion tech avoids the need to bridge to the IC
Yes. Chain Fusion tech can bring Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to IC without intermediaries (or bridges). It has done a great job on Bitcoin via protocol-level integration, especially.
Bitomni would like to take the power of chain fusion from the IC to other networks, by bridging those ck tokens to those other networks?
No. Bitomni is not here to use Chain Fusion’s power to bridge tokens to other networks. As stated on the Chain Fusion webpage: “Chain Fusion enables smart contracts to interact with multiple networks allowing developers to realise multichain use cases and profit from ICP features.” Bitomni is aiming to do exactly that with a focus on Bitcoin and its tokens.
As for BitoBridge, one of the BTCFi DApps of Bitomni, it is here to leverage Chain Fusion technology to provide users with the capabilities of:
- Bridging BTC and its emerging tokens, such as BRC20, from Bitcoin native blockchain to other blockchains (the BitoBridge Testnet now supports Ethereum, Arbitrum, and StratoVM). Please note: a. We use ckBTC as an intermediary to achieve this feature; b. Currently, there is basically no DApp to provide this service in the market.
- Bridging ICRC standard tokens (ck tokens are only a tiny part of ICRC tokens; for example, Ghost and CHAT are ICRC tokens but not ck tokens) to other blockchains (the BitoBridge Testnet now supports Ethereum, Arbitrum, and StratoVM); Please note: a. Currently, there is basically no DApp to provide this service in the market. b. One of the DFINITY Dev Grants we received includes this as an important feature.
- Bridging tokens of other standards, e.g., ERC20, to other blockchains, such as Aptos. Please note: there are other protocols, e.g., Layerzero, that can deliver this capability; however, they are not on IC. However, we think this feature reflects Chain Fusion’s vision and potentially strengthens IC capability.
Isn’t that somewhat self-defeating, given that chain fusion is about avoiding bridges?
We do not think Chain Fusion is about avoiding bridges. Chain Fusion is about seamless and secure interoperability between different blockchains. No bridge is needed to bring BTC to IC as ckBTC or ETH as ckETH. However, a Bitcoin omnichain bridge is needed to deliver the capabilities mentioned above.
In these cases, IC is the “bridge” since BitoBridge is built on IC, and all the core functionalities are realized in canisters. One of the reasons that BitoBridge is supposed to be safer and more trustless than other bridges is because it does not bootstrap a decentralized network like many other bridges do; we use IC, which provides us with the security, decentralization, and trustless once it is governed by an SNS DAO.
We hope this helps clarify things. Thank you.