GIP-93: Should GnosisDAO support the integration of Hashi within Gnosis Chain’s Canonical Bridges?

https://forum.gnosis.io/t/gip-93-should-gnosisdao-support-the-integration-of-hashi-within-gnosis-chains-canonical-bridges/8245

Category

Funding

Executive Summary:

This proposal presents a detailed plan for allocating funds towards integrating the Hashi protocol into Gnosis Chain’s canonical bridges from Ethereum, namely the xDAI Bridge and the AMB (on which the OmniBridge is built). The initiative emphasizes significantly enhancing the security and decentralization of these bridges. The integration aims to introduce advanced security measures, mitigate systemic risks, and ensure the Gnosis Chain ecosystem remains resilient against the evolving landscape of security threats. By fortifying the infrastructure with Hashi, we seek to establish a new standard for security and reliability in cross-chain transactions. Hashi is an additive security framework, currently supporting 15+ General Message Passing bridges and ZK light clients. With its integration on Gnosis bridges we remove any reliance on one specific bridging mechanism and add the ability to define threshold based bridging (only when 2 of 3 bridges agree a bridge transaction is accepted) along with zero vendor lock-in capabilities by allowing easy replacement of any bridging mechanisms in the future.

This integration will make Gnosis Chain the only L1 with such strong bridge security guarantees. We anticipate that this effort will foster greater user confidence and will have a big positive impact on the Gnosis ecosystem.

Specification

The proposal outlines a multi-faceted approach, focusing on:

• Developing an Integration Plan and Reference implementation Tailoring Hashi’s protocol to enhance the security properties of the canonical bridges. This requires the writing of dedicated technical documents, specifications and the development of a reference implementation.

• Conducting Extensive Security Audits Partnering with leading blockchain security firms to conduct end-to-end audits, identifying and addressing potential vulnerabilities within the proposed integration framework.

• Executing the Migration Upgrading the existing canonical bridges with the new proposed integration framework. This will be done in strict cooperation with the existing team in charge of Gnosis Chain Bridges.

• Governance configuration The current Gnosis Bridges multisig (8 of 15) will be configured to set the thresholds and allowed oracles. In the future this governance can be also replaced and improved if needed.

Rationale

In an era where security breaches and exploits have become increasingly sophisticated, bolstering the security and decentralization of Gnosis Chain’s bridges is imperative. Currently, both bridges are secured by a decentralized but still permissioned and trusted set of validators. Although battle tested throughout the years, the Gnosis community and GnosisDAO have realized the need to move to a more trust minimized and future-proof setup.

This proposal is driven by the vision of creating a fortified, resilient infrastructure capable of withstanding current and future security challenges. The Gnosis Community has already shown in the past a strong commitment to these values by supporting similar efforts (i.e. GIP-57 and the addition of Succinct’s ZK Light Client as a Validator, among others) and by bringing to life the Hashi project itself. This integration represents a strategic step forward in safeguarding assets and data, ensuring the Gnosis Chain remains a secure, trusted, and highly attractive platform for users and developers alike.

Lastly, Gnosis DAO has demonstrated in the past how important bridge security is to them. This proposal aims to implement previous research results and reap tangible benefits.

Budget

The budget is meticulously structured to cover all critical aspects of the integration process:

• Hashi Integration Design and Development: $60,000 allocated towards developing and implementing the Hashi integration.

• Security Audits and Migration Strategies: $90,000 dedicated to coordinating rigorous security audits and the formulation of robust mitigation strategies.

• Preparation and Execution of the Migration: $80,000 allocated to an in-depth study of the recommended configuration options and execution of the migration plan with the assistance of GnosisDAO.

• Monitoring the guarded launch and safeguards lifting: $20,000 dedicated to monitoring the initial launch with safeguards in place and securely lifting them after the initial guarded phase.

Milestones:

• Milestone 1: Hashi Integration Design and Implementation (Duration: 2 months)

  • Deliverables:

    • Development of a detailed security-centric design document and spec for Hashi’s integration with the 2 canonical bridges of Gnosis Chain.
    • Implementation of a reference code following the specifications.

  • Funding Allocation: $60,000

• Milestone 2: Security Audits and Migration Plan (Duration: 2 months)

  • Deliverables:

    • Completion of external security audits with documented findings and implemented fixes.
    • Development and launch of a Hashi explorer, a tool to oversee the validation progress of cross-chain transactions on Gnosis bridges.
    • Coordination on a possible Migration Plan as needed by Milestone 3.

  • Funding Allocation: $90,000

• Milestone 3: Preparation and Execution of the Migration of the Existing Bridges to the New Solution (Duration: 2 months)

  • Deliverables:

    • Case Study to present the recommended configuration options for Hashi.
    • Final coordination with the Gnosis Chain team on the Migration Plan execution.
    • Integration and coordination with all available oracle teams (the ones available on the Ethereum > Gnosis chain route from the total 17) and setup ZK light clients.
    • Execution of the migration on the Chiado testnet.
    • Analysis of testnet outcomes.
    • Execution of the migration for the Gnosis Chain’s canonical bridges.
    • Comprehensive report detailing the integration’s impact on security and decentralization metrics, including community feedback and usage statistics.

  • Funding Allocation: $80,000

• Milestone 4: Monitoring the guarded launch and safeguards lifting.

  • Deliverables:

    • Hashi as a validator on both Gnosis chain canonical bridges.
    • Monitoring of Hashi’s consistency with the current validator set.
    • Hashi as a mandatory validator.

  • Funding Allocation: $20,000

• Continued maintenance: Close to the end of the implementation of this proposal, a new proposal will be drafted covering the ongoing maintenance costs (Engineering, DevOps, and ZK Provers), expected to total $100,000-$150,000 per year. ZK prover costs cover the infrastructure costs (not gas), which currently are expected to decrease over time with the optimization work currently in progress by most ZK teams. Currently running just one Prover costs $60,000 / year.

The above pricing incorporates a significant discount due to the long and supportive relationship between Hashi and GnosisDAO.

Evaluation

Success will be evaluated based on the seamless integration of Hashi and the absence of significant downtimes during the coordinated migration process. Additionally, positive feedback from the Gnosis Chain community will serve as an indicator of the integration’s success and its impact on enhancing the ecosystem’s security posture.

Team

The Cross-chain Interoperability Alliance, the core development team of Hashi, comprises 3 people including 1 project manager and 2 blockchain engineers/security experts with a proven track record in developing cross-chain solutions and in pioneering stronger security guarantees in the space. The 3 team members have 4, 8 and 12 years of blockchain working experience respectively. This experience is critical in ensuring the successful execution of this proposal.

Conclusion

Through this proposal, we aim to significantly elevate the security and decentralization standards of the Gnosis Chain’s canonical bridges. The strategic integration of Hashi not only mitigates systemic risks but also positions Gnosis Chain as a leader in secure, decentralized cross-chain communications, all this while capitalizing on previous GnosisDAO’s investments.