Grant Proposal for MAP Protocol - a decentralized cross-chain interoperability protocol
Project Overview
MAP Protocol is a decentralized cross-chain interoperability protocol backed by a dedicated blockchain (MAP Chain) that safeguards cross-chain assets and empowers DeFi and other applications to achieve their full potential. Headquartered in Singapore, MAP Protocol has operation bases in SouthKorea, Hong Kong, the US, and Canada and is expanding quickly to become a truly distributed team.
Started in 2019, MAP Protocol has been invited to be on the Technical Board of IEEE Computer Society Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Standards Committee, the most prominent technology organization globally, to develop relevant international standards. MAP Protocol also received investment from Softbank Singapore, one of the largest venture capital companies in the world.
Launching in April 2022, the MAP chain is a fully EVM compatible public chain implementing PoS consensus mechanism. The MAP chain is explicitly designed for DeFi, and other Dapps to integrate cross-chain functionality to achieve cross-chain interoperability. Our testnet Makalu was launched Q32021 and has accumulated more than 108K addresses and counting.
Team
Frank Wen - Chief Scientist
Phil Lau - Tech Lead
Moore Lee - Core Developer
Vincent Cheng - Ecosystem Lead
Michelle Law - Business Lead
Ivy Ng - Marketing Lead
Goal
Develop a cross-chain bridge between MAP Mainnet and Harmony.
- Deployment of MAP’s light client on Harmony
- Deployment of MAP cross-chain bridge’s contract on Harmony
- Deployment of Harmony’s light client on MAP
- Create pending cross-chain token contracts on Harmony
- Upgrading the relayer to support cross-chain between MAP and Harmony
- Submit light client messages
Estimate
Grant: $60k
Duration: 3 months
Cost Breakdown and Milestones
- Develop a cross-chain bridge between MAP Mainnet and Harmony (Total: 60K)
- Deployment of MAP’s light client on Harmony (15K)
- Deployment of MAP cross-chain bridge’s contract on Harmony(10K)
- Deployment of Harmony’s light client on MAP (15K)
- Create pending cross-chain token contracts on Harmony (10K)
- Upgrading the relayer to support cross-chain between MAP and Harmony (5K)
- Submit light client messages (5K)
- Operation charges and gas fee subsidization (Total: 10K)
The majority of the budget will be dedicated to developing our cross-chain bridge between Harmony and MAP mainnet. Once the setup is done, Harmony will be connected to all of the MAP’s supported networks: BSC, ETH, and Polygon. MAP will support most of the EVM and non-EVM chains in the near future.
Part of the grant will be used to compensate for the operation charges and gas fee generated when Harmony’s current and potential users transfer assets via the MAP cross-chain service. Our low-cost transaction fee will attract residents from other chains to utilize our cross-chain bridge service, attract users and drive capital into Harmony’s ecosystem.
Advantages
Compared to other cross-chain projects, MAP Protocol has two distinct advantages:
1. Truly decentralization
Almost all cross-chain solutions in the market are a kind of third-party custodial bridge that is governed by a MPC or multi-signature wallet. The idea of MPCcan be dated back to the 1970s, long before the blockchain era, and is considered one of the most secure ways of guaranteeing security over a fund pool, for example, in the banking industry. Yet it is a centralized system and has serious security problems. One prominent example is if the majority of the custodians(usually a group of people designated by the project team) seek to steal the assets, they simply can – as they have enough keys. Or should a portion of the key holders required in the transaction elect to collude and steal funds, it would be impossible to verify who of the pool was responsible for the attack. Because of the systematic risks embedded in MPC or multi-sig, billions of digital assets have been stolen from those bridges - look at the recent Ronin bridge $612mm hack and previously Poly Network $611mmhack.
On the contrary, MAP Protocol uses a fully decentralized MAP chain backed by consensus and immutability to safeguard the assets in transition. Our model completely revamps the security level and achieves true decentralization in cross-chain space. MAP Prptocol’s unique and reliable trustless mechanism is realized in the following design:
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100+ random staked validators via BFT protocol secured the fully EVM compatible blockchain “MAP chain” and laid a solid foundation.
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Bulletproof smart contract “Assets Vault” manages massive cross-chain assets by automation
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The LightClient Protocol accomplishes Cross-chain verification
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1000+ Relayers update LightClients with cryptographic proof following consensus
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Massive Relayers support unbiased on-chain randomness in the swarm model
2. Not just a bridge, but a cross-chain ecosystem
Unlike other bridges with limited interoperability, MAP Protocol aims to be a true interoperability protocol that enables cross-chain transfers of data, information, assets, and smart-contract instructions among independent chains. MAP ecosystem’s projects can be upgraded for a cross-chain version by integrating with MAP SDK.
Benefits to Harmony
- Projects on Harmony can utilize our bridge to reach out to users on both EVM and non-EVM chains which will bring in new users and capital into the ecosystem.
- Our interoperability structure promotes mono-chain projects to multi-chain projects.
- Incentives will be given to Harmony users who utilize the cross-chain service.
Audit Report
CertiK: http://research.coinone.co.kr.s3.amazonaws.com/contract%20audit/Certik_report_verification_MAP.pdf
External links
Website: https://www.maplabs.io/
Bridge: https://bridge.maplabs.io/#/home?sourceNetwork=BSC&destNetwork=ETH&ts=1649129288433
Github: MAP Protocol · GitHub
Whitepaper: https://files.maplabs.io/pdf/mapprotocol_whitepaper_en.pdf
Twitter: https://twitter.com/marcopologlobal
Telegram: Telegram: Contact @MAPprotocol
