Core Concept

The Orbit Bridge model allows seamless asset transfers and connects token economies across chains. It is different from current IBC offerings like the Ren Protocol (Ren) and WBTC, which utilize IBC technology to provide liquidity to the Ethereum ecosystem, in that Orbit Bridge has achieved complete decentralization. In the cases of Ren and WBTC, transactions related to asset movement are verified and communicated off-chain by hidden validators. How consensus is reached is not transparently disclosed. This means that their protocols have relatively low decentralization, going against the basic principle of blockchain.

Orbit Chain's IBC is not only highly efficient, but it differentiates itself by transparently managing the consensus process without forming any components off-chain.

‌The Orbit IBC Bridge was created through continuous R&D to make it more transparent, have more finality in block creation, and make the bridge itself more scalable. It was designed not for simple token bridging, but for the establishment of an ecosystem of completely decentralized communication between heterogeneous chains. Just as locking tokens in token bridging is matched with a request and minting with execution, requests and execution are important starting points for various assets to be connected, without boundaries, between chains.

1) Setting Governance in the Origin Chain and Destination Chain

Orbit Bridge is open-source, so anyone who wants to take the initiative in transferring assets with their own governance consensus can create a vault within that chain. The great advantage of directly setting governance is that in an IBC where governance is structured, the overall policy and direction, including asset selection, are determined by consensus and no assets can be moved unless consensus is reached.

‌Thus, even if Orbit Bridge has IBC governance that connects Ethereum and Klaytn, those who do not trust the established governance can create a new IBC bridge by setting their own governance. Additionally, one entity can set a different governance consensus between an Origin Chain and Destination Chain. For example, the total number of validators and minimum required signatures between the chains can be different (e.g. Terra origin governance 4-of-7, Tron destination governance 3-of-5).

‌This IBC platform bridge emphasizes the trustless philosophy of blockchain and open sourced to allow anyone to build IBC to freely move assets. Bridges are secure because bridge users can trust the validators who manage and validate asset movement.

2) Scaling assets to make Orbit Bridge the connection point between many public chains

‌One of the most important upgrades of the new Orbit Bridge is scalability of movable assets. Scalability of assets means that any asset of a public chain can be moved to a heterogeneous chain if consensus is reached in an IBC’s governance, rather than just a specific asset like DAI in EVERYDAI.

If Orbit Bridge allows a wide range of assets to move freely, the platform chains currently growing DeFi in a fragmented state can see a variety of benefits. More than anything, liquidity issues, which are oft cited as the biggest problem in decentralized finance, can be solved by attracting assets of heterogeneous chains, not just assets of their own chain. We also expect that by using bridges to distribute the assets that each service area, such as payment, needs, we can lower blockchain entry hurdles for operators of existing centralized services.