zkBridge NEP-5: Integrate NERO with Polyhedra zkBridge

Category: Technical Proposal

I. Proposal:

This is a proposal to integrate the following project with zkBridge:

Project Name: NERO

Reasons for integration:

1. Attraction of Alt Tokens: While major tokens like USDT, USDC, ETH, and wBTC are crucial, NERO plans to attract numerous alt tokens to its platform through Polyhedra's bridge.

2. Future Token Integration: NERO seeks a seamless method for adding new token assets to the bridge, potentially through a self-service model to streamline the integration process and avoid burdening the integration team.

3. Growing Ecosystem: NERO’s growing ecosystem could benefit from increased interoperability. NERO has a strong community that could grow alongside the Polyhedra community.

Description: NERO is a modular L1, EVM compatible, with embedded AA. NERO's vision is to give back economic pricing power to the dApps and users, through an inclusive fee framework.

The key differentiator on NERO is every application has their own custom paymaster where they can set their own token to be used as gas and also set the fee parameters. NERO offers blockspace on consignment, through which they can go sell access to their users and modify fees according to the qualitative elements of those unique transaction characteristics. NERO solves the finality tradeoff on behalf of the dApp based on the economics chosen by the dApp though a bundler API that creates a unique pipeline for each dApp's transactions. Furthermore, NERO splits the transaction fees with the dApps in order to keep pricing honest and constantly in-check.

This total package we are calling Blockspace 2.0 where multidimensional gas becomes a reality, creating unprecedented flexibility and alignment between dApps and their blockchain for the first time.

This should make it clearer why we want to bridge so many long-tail assets to NERO through Polyhedra. We want to create demand for all of the ecosystem's tokens, not just native ones.

Native tokens are almost exclusively the only tokens that have legitimate utility. The rest of the tokens need not exist in Blockspace 1.0 . Our mission: Give applications tokens the same rights and privileges as the Native token on NERO. Creating demand for our constituents' tokens means we can retain them long term as partners. A rising tide lifts all ships.

Project’s Social Media: Website: nerochain.io Twitter: https://twitter.com/Nerochain_io Discord: https://discord.com/invite/nerochainofficial Telegram: @NerochainOfficial

II. Rationale:

zkBridge provides users with a range of options and greater asset diversity to bridge across various L1s and L2s. By expanding the supported blockchains, it allows more users worldwide to be able to access the functionalities and features of, and participate in the growth and development of, the Polyhedra Network. Candidates for future integrations will be selected by the community. Based on feedback received from ecosystem members, the community will consider multiple criteria, including:

1. Global reach, recognition from major industry players, and community interest
2. Focus on adhering to regulatory standards and ensuring security,
3. Interest in zero-knowledge proofs
4. Potential for enhancing the network functionality, applications, and user interactions to set a new standard for secure, efficient, and user-friendly cross-chain transactions
5. If this would foster greater participation and collaboration within the blockchain ecosystem
6. Enhanced flexibility and efficiency, decentralization and system integrity across these blockchain networks.

III. Abstract:

Polyhedra Network’s zkBridge represents a significant advancement in the blockchain industry, offering a trustless, efficient, and secure interoperability protocol across different Layer-1 and Layer-2 networks. Polyhedra currently supports integration of zkBridge with a number of third party blockchains and ecosystems such as AltLayer, Alchemy Bridge, Arbitrum, and others. Central to the zkBridge security model is the integration of zero-knowledge proofs, which offer robust security that is not dependent on external factors and significantly reduce the complexities and costs associated with on-chain verifications. Other assets could be supported and utilized to grow the utility of the network.

IV. Additional Background:

On April 4, 2023, zkBridge launched on ten layer-1 and layer-2 blockchain networks including Polygon, Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, and Cosmos. zkBridge is the first trustless, efficient, secure, and universal cross-chain bridge with advanced zero-knowledge proof technology. zkBridge uses zkSNARKs to enable a prover to efficiently convince the receiver chain that a certain state transition happened on the sender chain. zkBridge consists of a block header relay network and an updater contract. zkBridge uses a 2-layer recursive proof system to achieve fast proof generation and low on-chain proof verification cost to support cross-chain applications. As of June 2024, zkBridge has supported more than 30 layer-1 and layer-2 networks, and successfully verified more than 20 million cross-chain transactions.

V. Threshold to Approve:

1. More than 50,000 of total Staking Power (SP) cast as votes, and
2. More Yes votes than No votes.