An agnostic and secure interoperability protocol for seamless asset movement
El-hacen Diallo, Mohameden Dieye, Omar Amjad Dib, Pierre Valiorgue · Journal of Network and Computer Applications · 2024
As blockchain technology continues to evolve, it has fostered an extensive ecosystem of applications and platforms. This dynamic landscape is characterized by a myriad of innovative solutions, ranging from decentralized finance and supply chain management to digital identity and voting systems, each contributing to the ongoing advancement and adoption of blockchain technology across various sectors. Achieving interoperability among these applications and platforms poses a significant challenge due to their use of distinct protocols, and remains a bottleneck hindering the widespread adoption of blockchain technologies. Addressing this challenge requires designing a universal interoperability protocol while ensuring compliance with the security and privacy constraints specific to each blockchain, thus adding complexity. We propose an agnostic interoperability protocol designed for seamless asset movement across independent private blockchain networks, regardless of their individual protocols. This protocol leverages incentive-driven smart contract and Zero-Knowledge Proofs to establish a decentralized, secure, and privacy-focused framework for interoperability. We conduct a security analysis using game theory and provide both theoretical and empirical evaluations of the protocol end-to-end delay. Through a comprehensive use case, we demonstrate the secure deployment of the proposed protocol for asset movement between two private blockchains. We also discuss the trade-offs between cost and delay in cross-blockchain transactions. Furthermore, a comparative analysis with existing interoperability schemes showcases the proposed interoperability scheme superiority in terms of robustness, privacy preservation, and verifiability.