By
Temitope Olatunji
April 18th, 2024
To address the problems of Ethereum scalability, Syscoin has developed a new protocol called the Bridge that will ensure the seamless transferring of ERC20 tokens into the Syscoin ecosystem.
Syscoin, which launched in 2014 as one of the earliest pioneers of ICO fundraisers, has announced the launch of the Syscoin Bridge protocol, allowing ERC20 tokens to move from the Ethereum network into the Syscoin ecosystem. For network users who wish to take advantage of the newfound interoperability, block 348,000 on the Syscoin blockchain will provide the first opportunity.
The pitch from Syscoin is for a decentralized, secure, low fee blockchain with high transaction throughput – contrasting markedly with Ethereum and its ongoing scaling issues – while at the same supporting smart contract functionality. If this promise comes to pass then the long-running Syscoin project could enjoy a breakout year and a prime seat at the decentralized finance table.
The Bridge
Syscoin is seeking to differentiate itself from the competition with the release of its Z-DAG (Zero-Confirmation Directed Acyclic Graph) network. The decentralized Z-DAG network balances security and speed to determine what level of network intervention is required depending on the value of each transaction. In this way, smaller transactions are not throttled by an overbearing network, and can instead be conducted with a highly reduced burden.
In some ways, Z-DAG is comparable to Bitcoin’s Lightning Network and other layer two scaling solutions, with the key difference that Z-DAG is a solution in which each transaction receives onchain finality. The decentralized instant settlement protocol is based on zero knowledge cryptography and uses two consensus layers with the fast Z-DAG layer reinforced by a more traditional POW solution.
The system has also demonstrated to be fast during its trial phase. Under the scrutiny of blockchain development and testing company Whiteblock, Syscoin is showing encouraging early signs of delivering upon its word. In strict test conditions, Z-DAG recorded an impressive 60,000 transactions per second (TPS) which would make it faster even than credit cards payment solutions such as Visa and MasterCard. By using the Syscoin master node network as a high-throughput relay network, transactions are carried out in the background with incredibly low latency.
The next step for Syscoin will be to transfer those impressive test scores into the real world, and demonstrate that they can duplicate them during actual network usage.
Breathing Space
Ethereum has, for a considerable time, been struggling with scaling issues. Alarm bells were rung when the popularity of crypto-collectible game CryptoKitties hit its peak in 2017 and the network effectively ground to a halt for long periods. A number of potential solutions to the matter have since been muted, but as yet, none have gained widestream adoption.
Plasma, recently rebranded as Optimism, is the likeliest contender in Ethereum’s scaling wars, promising instant ETH transactions and scalable smart contracts. Then there’s Raiden Network, which delivers instant and low-cost payments using ERC20 tokens. It includes a simple API for developers to build scalable decentralized applications.
There nevertheless remains a ripe opportunity for any system that can help Ethereum to fully scale, keep gas prices low, and take some much needed bandwidth from the network. The Syscoin bridge is supposed to allow for trustless interoperability between ERC20 tokens and Syscoin Platform Tokens, allowing higher throughput rates while drastically reducing the burden on Ethereum. It has the potential to offer the Ethereum network the breathing space it has been crying out for and a leg up for other defi projects seeking to make an impact across multiple chains.