Support for new Chains
An overview of how support for new chains is determined to be added to the protocol
Synapse's underlying goal is to be the most useful cross-chain network for all multi-chain transactions. As such, the goal of the protocol is to support as many widely used chains as possible, while maintaining the underlying security of the protocol.The initial rollout of supported chains by Synapse was EVM-focused, however, the protocol is designed to work in a language-agnostic manner.
For example, some of the future chains of interest to add deep support for are:
- Avalanche Subnets
- Cosmos-based chains (IBC)
- ETH ZK L2s
- The chain must support secp256k1 ECDSA signing schemes.
- Node infrastructure must be reliable with consistent stable RPC uptime, and no issues of chain syncs.
- Chain explorer using either Etherscan, Blockscout, or equivalent in quality.
New chain support is divided into two categories:
Synapse can help bridge assets from all chains, in an interoperable manner, allowing for all types of users to be able to accessibly onboard onto the chain you're building. Additionally, our bridge ecosystem partners can also deploy alongside Synapse to help encourage further growth.
Synapse also provides cross-chain communication to your chain if there are specific custom needs, such as bridging of NFTs & data associated with them, messaging passing from other blockchains, and more.
If you're a chain with an existing native bridge, Synapse can still add support for your network. In these cases, a few key things influence the protocol's decision to add support
1) User and developer demand for token bridging and cross-chain communication, respectively
2) Co-marketing & general support from the network
3) Introductions to additional dapps in the chain's native ecosystem
A crucial thing to keep in mind is that while typically native bridges only support Chain A -> Chain B transfers, Synapse is an interoperable protocol supporting global transfers from any chain to any other chain, which dramatically changes the onboarding of users.
When an already supported chain goes through any major consensus upgrade, Synapse validators should pause functionality on all chains that have exposure to the upgrading chains liquidity and assets.
Last modified 2mo ago