Fragmentation has been a major issue hindering the fluid movement of assets in the crypto space. Each blockchain operates in its silo, with unique features and limitations. However, users and projects often want to move assets across blockchains but find it hard.

Enter deBridge Finance, a cross-chain interoperability and liquidity transfer protocol designed to break down these barriers. Whether you’re a DeFi enthusiast, an NFT collector, or a token holder, deBridge ensures your assets remain accessible.

What is deBridge?

deBridge stands as a high-performance and secure interoperability layer for Web3, facilitating decentralized transfers of arbitrary messages and value across different blockchains. deBridge acts as a bridge, allowing assets to flow seamlessly between different blockchains allowing users to swap tokens without intermediaries, unlocking new possibilities.

deBridge makes use of independent validators to validate cross-chain transactions. These validators maintain blockchain infrastructure and sign transactions passing through deBridge smart contracts. Validators are economically incentivized to maintain fault-tolerant relaying of cross-chain transactions.

Features of deBridge protocol

• Blockchain-Agnostic: deBridge supports any existing blockchains and smart contracts. It makes adding support for new chains seamless while also not disrupting ongoing operations.
• Universal Hooking Service: deBridge allows any existing protocol to instantly scale up to any other chains (L1s, L2s, sidechains) and interconnect protocol components in different ecosystems. The protocol also allows the bridging of arbitrary data, which will facilitate projects and developers’ integration with or application building using deBridge.
• Fast and Decentralized: The consensus among validators is achieved on the smart contract level, which guarantees fast and asynchronous execution of all cross-chain transactions that pass the protocol. Slashing and delegated staking mechanics are a backbone for protocol security and make all validators financially responsible for fault-tolerance relaying of cross-chain transactions.
• Unified Standard for Cross-Chain Transfers: deBridge removes the need to look for a specific bridge for each blockchain by allowing users to specify the original and destination chains in a single UI.

Use Cases of deBridge

• Cross-Chain Swaps: deBridge enables seamless swap of assets across different networks.
• Multi-Chain Governance: deBridge enables decentralized governance across multiple chains.
• Cross-Chain Lending: deBridge facilitates lending and borrowing across ecosystems.
• Cross-Chain Yield Farming: deBridge allows users to maximize returns by participating in yield farming on various chains.

History of deBridge Finance

deBridge commenced during the Chainlink Global Hackathon in early 2021. The project was awarded the grand prize and took first place among more than 140 teams worldwide. In September, the project announced its $5.5M fundraising round with leading VCs and companies such as Animoca Brands, Lemniscap, Crypto.com Capital, Huobi Ventures, and others.

In February 2022, deBridge launched their mainnet beta where they supported five chains and seamless cross-chain swaps between any assets in one transaction. Now they have built out a secure and reliable cross-chain infrastructure and are currently supporting 12 chains with plans for further expansion.

How Does deBridge Work?

deBridge acts as a bridge connecting different blockchains. Here’s how it accomplishes this:

• Smart Contracts: deBridge deploys smart contracts on each supported blockchain. These contracts serve as gateways, allowing assets to move in and out.
• User Requests: When a user initiates a cross-chain transfer (e.g., moving tokens from Ethereum to Binance Smart Chain), deBridge’s smart contract receives the request.
• Oracles: Decentralized oracles verify the transaction details. They ensure that the requested asset exists on the source chain and reserve it for transfer.
• Validator Consensus: The transaction is relayed to a network of independent validators, who reach a consensus on the transfer’s validity.
• Cross-Chain Execution: Once consensus is reached, the smart contract executes the transfer on the destination chain. The asset then becomes available to the user in the target ecosystem.

Decentralized Oracles and Security

• Oracles: These decentralized data sources provide real-world information to smart contracts. In deBridge, oracles verify asset availability, ensuring the transfer is valid.
• Security Measures: Validators play a critical role. They maintain the blockchain infrastructure and validate cross-chain transactions. Slashing mechanisms penalize validators for misbehavior, ensuring their commitment to secure and reliable relaying.

deBridge Protocol Structure

Protocol Layer

The Protocol Layer consists of on-chain smart contracts deployed on every blockchain supported by deBridge. Here’s what each component does:

• Asset Management and Routing: Smart contracts manage assets, ensuring secure movement across chains. The smart contract handles the routing when a user initiates a cross-chain transaction.
• Cross-Validation of Validators’ Signatures: Validators are crucial in ensuring transaction validity. The smart contract requires a minimum threshold of validators’ signatures to treat a transaction as valid. This consensus mechanism prevents single points of failure and enhances security.
• Governance Parameters: The governance manages smart contract parameters such as transaction fees, supported chains, whitelist of elected validators, validators’ payout ratios, and more

Infrastructure Layer

The Infrastructure Layer operates off-chain and involves reputable validators elected by deBridge governance. Validators run deBridge nodes alongside full nodes of each supported blockchain. They monitor cross-chain transactions passing through the protocol to ensure its integrity and security.

Unlike traditional on-chain broadcasting, deBridge validators don’t need to send transactions or bear gas costs. When a cross-chain transaction is initiated via the deBridge smart contract, it receives a unique hash (Submission ID). Validators track all transactions and sign the Submission once it achieves finality. This off-chain validation ensures efficient and reliable processing.

The Backbone of deBridge Protocol: Slashing and Delegated Staking

Delegated staking and slashing mechanisms are the backbone of protocol security, preventing economic incentives for validators to collude and forge messages. A Delegated Staking smart contract is a component of the deBridge protocol that enables slashing and delegated staking logic. Anyone (including validators) can delegate liquidity to validators, serving as a financial assurance of their fairness.

Responsibility of Validators

Validators play a critical role in maintaining the protocol’s integrity. The liquidity delegated to validators serves as collateral. If validators validate forged or censored messages, their collateral risks being slashed.

How Slashing Works

If a validator misbehaves (e.g., validates a forged transaction), they face slashing. Any financial loss due to validator misbehavior is compensated for the slashed collateral. Validators bear reputational and financial risks, ensuring proper protocol operation and fault tolerance.

Delegated Staking

This involves users staking their crypto tokens with any validator they believe is reliable, knows how to manage infrastructure, and will not incur breakdowns or delays in transaction processing and validation.

Governance manages the whitelist of assets that can be staked. Initially, only ETH, USDT, and USDC assets can be staked, but as the protocol develops, other tokens will become acceptable.

Cooldown Periods for Unstaking and Transfers

After initiating unstaking, a 14-day cooldown applies before users can claim their assets. This prevents front-running during high-volume periods and allows governance to slash validator collateral before delegators unstake.

A shorter 2-day cooldown period applies when transferring stakes between validators. Governance can still slash the stake if the original validator fails. During cooldown periods, delegators stop receiving protocol rewards on the staked amount.

deBridge Applications

deBridge Widget

The deBridge Widget offers a streamlined solution for integrating cross-chain exchanges directly into your application. Whether you’re building a mobile app, a website, or a decentralized application (dApp), this widget allows users to swap tokens between different blockchain networks seamlessly.

How It Works

• Easy Integration: You can embed the deBridge Widget into your app with minimal effort. Just a few lines of code, and you’re ready to go.
• Customization Options: The widget is fully customizable to match your app’s design and branding. Adjust colors, fonts, and other visual elements according to your preferences.
• Cross-Chain Functionality: Users can exchange arbitrary assets across various blockchains. Whether moving tokens from Ethereum to Binance Smart Chain or any other combination, deBridge Widget handles it seamlessly.

Technical Requirements

• Web Technology Base: The widget relies on web technology, so your app must support JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. If your app uses a WebView, you can easily add the widget.
• Framework Flexibility: You can use any type of web app framework. The widget launches through an embedded iframe on your page.

dePort

dePort serves as a native bridge, allowing protocols to seamlessly transfer tokens between blockchains. It creates a bridge between the native chain (where the token was created) and secondary chains.

Locking and Minting Approach

In the native chain, the native token is locked or unlocked using a deBridgeGate smart contract. When users want to move assets to another chain, they lock the native token in the deBridgeGate. In secondary chains, a synthetic representation called a deAsset is minted or burned. Minting creates a deAsset equivalent to the locked native token while burning destroys it.

Each token locked in the native chain has an associated wrapped asset on the target chain. The protocol ensures that the total supply of each deAsset minted in secondary chains is always 1:1 backed by the asset collateral locked in the deBridgeGate smart contract in the native chain.

deBridge P2P

deBridge P2P allows users to choose a counterparty for their cross-chain transfers. It’s like having a decentralized OTC desk where you control the price, execution, and asset custody.

Key Features of deBridge P2P

• Non-Custodial Trading: Unlike centralized exchanges (CEXs) or decentralized exchanges (DEXs), deBridge P2P ensures you never lose custody of your assets during a trade. You remain in control throughout the process.
• Compliant Cross-Chain Trades: Institutions can make compliant trades with known counterparties. Users know the origin of liquidity used to fulfill the trade and who the counterparty is.
• Pre-Listing Trading: Users can trade assets on deBridge P2P before they’re listed on exchanges.
• Privacy-Centric Transactions: deBridge P2P keeps deals confidential by trading P2P on-chain.

deExplorer

deExplorer serves as a navigation tool, providing a comprehensive view of cross-chain connections. Users can track transactions, explore supported chains, and gain insights into the network’s health.

Key Features of deExplorer

• Cross-Chain Insights: deExplorer allows users to explore connections between different blockchains. Whether you’re curious about Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Solana, or other ecosystems, deExplorer provides a map.
• Transaction Tracking: Users can track cross-chain transactions in real-time. It’s like having a telescope to observe the movement of assets across the crypto universe.
• Network Health: deExplorer provides insights into the health and performance of supported chains. Users can gauge reliability and make informed decisions.

deBridge IaaS

deBridge IaaS (Interoperability-as-a-Service) is the first service that allows any blockchain to plug into deBridge infrastructure. It simultaneously solves all three pillars of interoperability: transfers of authenticated messages, cross-chain asset custody, and native high-performance value exchange (liquidity bridging).

Key Features and Opportunities

• deBridge Messaging: deBridge IaaS provides a decentralized infrastructure for cross-chain message and data transfers. Smart contracts deployed across different EVM and SVM chains can establish authenticated communication channels through it.
• DLN Cross-Chain Exchange: A high-performance cross-chain trading infrastructure built on deBridge. It offers zero slippage on any order size, deeper market depth, and the fastest settlement times and enables native asset trading without wrapped assets and risks of locked liquidity.
• dePort Asset Custody: Allows for seamless custody of assets from other networks in just one click. Projects and DAOs can scale effortlessly into neighboring ecosystems and create utility for their assets across different chains.

deBridge Tokenomics

$DBR is the governance token of the deBridge ecosystem, with a total supply of 10 billion tokens. It empowers token holders to participate in DAO governance and decision-making. Here is how the tokens are distributed;

• Community & Launch (20%): This will be distributed to users and projects as an incentive.
• Ecosystem Support (26%): This supports the deBridge ecosystem, ensuring sustainable growth and development.
• Core Contributors (20%): This is reserved for core team members and contributors.
• Strategic Partners (17%): This is reserved for partners collaborating with deBridge and strengthening ecosystem partnerships.
• deBridge Foundation (15%): This supports long-term sustainability and community initiatives.
• Validators (2%): This is reserved for validators ensuring network security.

Token Utility

• Staking: DBR holders can stake their tokens to participate in DAO governance voting. They can also influence strategic protocol parameters, validator elections, and consensus thresholds.
• Governance: DBR holders actively participate in decision-making which helps shape the future of deBridge through decentralized control.

How to Use deBridge

1. Visit app.debridge.finance and connect your wallet.

2. From the main view, select the token you want to bridge and enter the amount you want to transfer.

3. Choose the chain where you want to bridge your funds to and the token you want to swap to

4. If you plan to send the swapped token to someone toggle on “Trade and send to another address” and input the recipient address to send out

5. Click “Confirm trade” and accept the transaction in your Wallet.

You’ve successfully bridged your token using deBridge.

Conclusion

Cross-chain interoperability is the key to unlocking new possibilities in the vast crypto multiverse. Cross-chain bridges allow assets to flow freely, breaking down silos. With deBridge, users gain control over their assets, moving them where needed.

Whether you’re a trader, developer, or DeFi enthusiast, deBridge offers user-friendly tools like the widget, dePort, and P2P trading. DBR governance tokens empower you to shape deBridge’s future. Remember, with deBridge, the bridges are always open. Explore, experiment, and be part of the cross-chain revolution!