ARK.io : Connecting Blockchains With the Help of Implementation of SmartBridge

ARK, a Lisk/Crypti-forked cryptocurrency, last day is currently underway, ending today 11th of December 2016 .

ARK has various features including a smart card for consumer use, IPFS integration, and the ability to transact and communicate across blockchains.

Consensus 2016 identified interoperability is one of the biggest challenges facing the cryptocurrency industry. In 2016, almost 200 new coins have launched. This makes cross-blockchain communication one of the core issues challenging the cryptocurrency community.

ARK developed SmartBridge to overcome this obstacle. Lisk allows other distributed applications to stay connected to the Lisk ecosystem through sidechains. ARK’s SmartBridge does not use sidechains and other blockchains can send special messages to and through ARK by using SmartBridge. An ARK transaction could for example be issued using Ethereum, or an Ethereum smart contract could be triggered from Bitcoin through ARK. This will however only be possible once Ethereum and Bitcoin become SmartBridge compatible.

ARK uses encoded listeners to achieve this. These special nodes listen to other chains to identify transactions that bear ARK-compatible messages. The contents of those messages, including transactions on other chains, is then executed. Apparently, the nodes can easily parse and relay the messages, as the messages themselves are executable transactions.
These features could be used in a number of different ways in the emerging cryptocurrency industry.

• Use only ARK to transact across blockchains. Numerous cryptocurrency holders have many different coins, spread over different exchanges and wallets. ARK could allow them to manage their holdings centrally from ARK itself. If there is support for decentralized exchange activity, this could include swaps across different chains.
• Allow users to use other blockchains without having to manage the native tokens. Various new projects that have their own tokens or currencies are being launched. These proprietary tokens allow holders to use their platform. A user could issue a transaction to pay five ETH worth of the new token instead of buying the new token directly. The encoded listener (for example Shapeshift) would be able to claim the five ETH and pay the other chain on the user’s behalf.
One challenge facing ARK is that it won’t be able to speak with all chains immediately. To overcome this, it will support others in the development of the encoded listeners, specific to their sets of chains. Other suppliers would create cross-blockchain payment schemes that their customers could use for a fee, or develop encoded listeners for their own customers. SmartBridge is the fundamental underpinning technology that not only protects information, but also allows it to transfer from one chain to another. Other applications have to use the information.

The ARK team has developed a couple lines of code that other chains can used to make them compatible with SmartBridge. The code can be implemented on an existing chain through a fork, or be put into a new blockchain easily.

There are a number questions still need to be answered:
• How trusted do the encoded listeners need to be?
• How will the escrow feature for currency swaps work?
• How will integration with IPFS be achieved?
• How will price feeds for cross-chain transfers work?

The ARK team’s initial code was made available on the 12th November. A number of technical details are still being reviewed by the community.

Participate now - last few hours are underway! https://tec.ark.io/#bitsyo