The importance of cross-compatibility in the digital World and how Tarush caters to this demand Tarush Follow Jun 8, 2019 · 5 min read

In a quarter of a century, more than 53% of the World’s population has started using the internet and the rate is increasing exponentially. Since the total number of users is about 4 billion, it is pretty rational to assume that collectively, they all use a different OS, apps and technologies for performing a variety of activities on the internet. With so much diversification, the latest systems and apps being rolled out in the market must be cross-compatible for connecting everyone across the Globe.

Talking about the new wave in technology (i.e. blockchain), most of the networks have their independent use cases, tokens, apps, and users. They operate in quite an isolated environment, which halts their exponential progress since users and apps from a variety of networks cannot interact.

Why is cross-compatibility important in blockchain?

See, blockchain is meant to offer scalability. But when a network grows without having any compatibility with its significant others, users are unable to transfer their assets from one chain to another and as you must have understood, smart contracts running on network A cannot execute a contract on network B.

There are a couple of solutions in the market allowing cross-compatibility, like Crowd Machine. Basically, they offer dApps which are interoperable with any blockchain. Despite being a wonderful initiative, the solution is rather centralized and robs the technology of its true spirit (i.e. decentralization).

Even though Bitcoin still enjoys a decent role in the market, it does not have a monopoly anymore. There are several coins and millions of users belonging to different networks. Therefore, the community needs a robust solution like Taursh, which allows efficient transactions between a variety of blockchains, without depending on a 3rd party.

Pros of cross-platform compatibility

Let’s talk about it from the perspective of a business. Your company does not have to create a wallet account on every network to accept more customers. With cross-platform compatibility, only one wallet account will allow you to receive payments from all the chains. As a result of this, you do not have to depend on the uptime of any 3rd party or pay any intermediary chain for receiving or sending the money.

Moreover, it would also allow a slow performing network to shift its intensive computation to another network, get it done, and then retrieve the result — at no cost!

Let’s explore the pros categorically now.

Multi-token transaction

Multi-token wallet system is vital for cryptocurrencies and with its help, investors, HODLers and daily users won’t have to trust a 3rd party (usually an exchange) for possessing their tokens. As a result, the transactions and conversions will be performed much more efficiently without risking your assets.

Interoperability

We have already discussed it above. Just like any other cross-platform technology, blockchains will also be able to interact with each other and exchange their assets without being reliant on any intermediary, thus cutting off the delays and excessive transaction costs.

Value transfer

If you look at it, all digital systems, particularly the ones dealing with financial activities, merely transfer the numeric ‘value’ from one place to another. For instance, if you transfer 1BTC to your friend’s wallet, does a real coin move across the chain? No, just a number is deducted from your wallet and added to your friend’s wallet.

With cross-platform blockchain, this value transmission can get a whole new meaning.

Factors to consider

Cross chain compatibility is a very fascinating term and sounds like a great thing. However, there are a couple of factors that must be scrutinized before making your solution go live.

First of all, since we are talking about moving funds or other digital assets from one chain to another, there must be enough security for establishing a channel between the chains. Plus, it should also be guaranteed that if funds are being transferred from network A to network B, then the later mentioned does not get hold of the private keys of the other. This issue is quite decently addressed in FUSION (a cross chain platform) which implements DCRM to share the private keys of the network and it guarantees that none of the nodes possesses an entire key. As a result of this implementation, FUSION ensures that a single node is not authorized to take control of all the digital assets.

Conclusion

In any blockchain network, either data or value gets exchanged. There are some solutions in the market that allow interoperability based on token compatibility and a very few 3rd party blockchains offer cross-compatibility for either value or data based chains. However, considering the exponential growth of the industry, it is crucial that we create more solutions like Tarush that offer comprehensive feasibility and cover a wide range of networks.

Moreover, it is also crucial that we encourage different organizations and people to implement their ideas on a wide variety of blockchains, instead of funneling down on Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric, Waves, etc.

A decentralized technology is difficult to implement than a centralized one and there are a variety of challenges that must be catered in order to make a network successful. In recent years, we have seen a sheer focus on privacy and scalability, but cross-compatibility is somewhat… lost! If this issue is not addressed heads on, like Tarush has taken an initiative by implementing MimbleWimble, the industry might end up in a pit of fragmentation and inefficiency in the next 5–7 years.

So it is very important to persuade developers, investors and innovators to focus on a variety of chains while developing interoperable systems.