Internet Computer wants to integrate Bitcoin and Ethereum this year
Internet Computer, a public blockchain and protocol that allows developers to install decentralized applications and smart contracts on top of the blockchain, announced plans to integrate Ethereum and Bitcoin in its 2022 roadmap. Senior Technical Program Manager Dieter Sommer explained that the Bitcoin integration will include two main features.
The first is the actual technical integration of the Bitcoin network with the Internet Computer Protocol. summer said:
“It deals with the connection of IC nodes to nodes of the Bitcoin network, the procurement of Bitcoin blocks, the provision of blocks by IC consensus, the processing of these blocks, the provision of UTXO (unspent transaction output) sets for Canisters smart contracts and the ability for Canisters to transmit BTC transactions to the Bitcoin network.”
The second deals with the transfer of the Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA) signature used by Bitcoin to the trust model of Internet computers. Amid fears that using a bridge will leave the network vulnerable to malicious attacks, smart contracts are being added to the Bitcoin blockchain using Chain Key Cryptography. The integration of Bitcoin is part of Dfinity’s “Chromium Satoshi Release” planned for the first quarter of the year.
According to Berto Parga Pena, a member of the Dfinity community, chain key cryptography is the breakthrough Internet computer that scales to millions of nodes.
“It’s a set of cryptographic protocols that coordinate the nodes of Internet computers and the engine that enables them to operate.”
Internet computer integration with Ethereum
Diego Prats, Product Director at Dfinity wrote:
“Smart contracts on the Internet computer will be able to hold, send and receive bitcoin without the need for private keys.”
The Ethereum integration is also part of the “Vanadium Vitalik Release”, which is scheduled for the third quarter of the year.According to Michael Less, Vice President of Communications, the integrations are designed to facilitate Dfinity’s “Multi-Chain Future” vision. He explained that the best user experience is to connect all networks directly to each other.
“So when you conduct a bitcoin transaction on Internet computers, the bitcoin ledger changes compared to what you see today with a bridge. It’s like wrapped bitcoin or wrapped ether.”
Dfinity has presented several developments, including the possibility for smart contracts to hold their balance of ICP tokens. Currently, 250,000 queries are supported by ICP and transactions are completed within one to two seconds.
The Internet Computer Blockchain has also hosted its first decentralized exchange (Sonic). ICP token emerged as the worst-performing crypto asset of 2021, shedding 97% from its high recorded in May. This is expected to change as Binance has announced that it will launch a financial instrument that will allow traders to trade ICP to and from ETH.
