CHIPs signaling phase: Simplified Babylon x Cosmos Hub
This is a significant revision of CHIPs signaling phase: Babylon x Cosmos Hub [Deprecated] , which is intended to bring Bitcoin security to the Cosmos Hub with Babylon. We’ve made a new thread since it is such a significant revision. Refer to the old thread to see prior discussion. Both of these proposals follow this discussion phase post: Bringing Bitcoin security to the Cosmos Hub with Babylon . After hearing concerns from the community about the complexity of the previous design and conferring with the Babylon team, we are significantly revising this proposal. The Babylon team has created a CosmWasm contract to enable Bitcoin security. This is installed on chains consuming Bitcoin security from Babylon. This CosmWasm contract includes a WASM Bitcoin light client, meaning that it does not need an offchain oracle such as Slinky. How it works The new integration uses Babylon’s “finality provider” concept. This is a variation on the dual quorum shared security model. The finality providers are effectively a second validator set, whose power comes from staked Bitcoin. They sign off on each block which has been produced by a chain’s main validator set. They protect…
Excerpt (1192 of 7412 characters). Read the whole post on the forum ↗
We would like to start by saying that we agree with most of the claims presented in this post. We also think the dual quorum model may be a good solution until we alleviate the inherent complexities of “power mixing.” From our perspective, the endgame is to achieve that mixing model as envisioned by the Mesh Security design, but in the meantime, we agree to opt for a step-by-step approach. To provide comprehensive feedback on the proposed rework for the system design, we would like to highlight one particular problem. With this new design, we can hardly imagine that demand will be there to add Bitcoin security on top of ATOMs. This would cause the security budget to be diluted even further. While we conducted research regarding Partial Set Security (PSS) economics, we discovered that security revenues are mostly overestimated by most participants. This is a far more stretched market than people think. Therefore, the number one risk we foresee is that this dual model would likely add even more strain on an already tight balance of security costs for consumer candidates. Our assumption is that this additional security may actually encounter very little demand, aside from highly…
Excerpt (1198 of 3606 characters). Read the whole post on the forum ↗
Super interesting. I like the incremental approach, and as a community leader of a chain considering ICS I can say this adds a nice extra layer of security and assurance that I think is compelling.
Firstly, thank you for all the research on security aggregation. Here, I will simply share my opinion. Personally, I believe that adding a security proposition and a slashable collateral is an interesting initiative that increases modularity and enhances security for certain specific actors, such as layer 2 solutions on Bitcoin, thus allowing the onboarding of chains like Lorenzo. However, I also think that the largest client in terms of layer 2 is Ethereum. The possibility of launching a layer 2 solution secured by ETH via the Cosmos Hub, thereby benefiting from direct interoperability with Cosmos, deserves to be explored. It is time to start studying the best way to integrate zk proofs secured by the hub to settle transactions on Ethereum. Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s probably the best way to connect to Ethereum.
We are 100% aligned with this:
Quentin:It is time to start studying the best way to integrate zk proofs secured by the hub to settle transactions on Ethereum. Maybe I’m wrong, but it’s probably the best way to connect to Ethereum.
This requires quite some engineering but no doubt someone will target that market-share. Ethereum has announced plans to get Single Slot Finality (SSF) but we won’t get that anytime soon. In the interim combining the instant finality of a Cosmos compatible EVM wrapper secured by the Hub’s ICS with ETH as a dual quorum security 
… RIP Ethos which can only offer a Proof of Authority consensus.
Can anyone explain what the benefit of this is? Is it the market cap of the other protocols providing security against a 50% attack on Cosmos? I haven’t wrapped my head around the implications - and it doesn’t seem very obvious to me except for the piece that I questioned directly.
For example - I happen to like Proof of Authority consensus, although I know it’s not fully decentralized, but all the parameters for block propagation can be fine-tuned for maximum throughput.
In practical terms, there are people building systems that they would like to secure with staked Bitcoin (call them Bitcoin L2s, sidechains, whatever). This integration lets them use the Cosmos Hub to launch these chains more easily and securely. The benefit to the Hub will hopefully be to attract this type of project. Lorenzo protocol is one project that will launch a ICS consumer chain which would not do so if we didn’t have this integration.
Projects that want to build a chain that is secured by stBTC or nBTC…I’m not familiar with the lorenzo project… I’ll have to check it out.
I get it. There are the Maxis’. Anyway that yield is made a token is usually locked for some bonding period. Logically I make comparisons to the value of a protocol that focuses on this kind of staking or a protocol like Kujira and all its features.
I also think about the RWPs I’m interested in and l wonder what kind of benefit staking nBTC or stBTC would have over issuing a token for those projects - other than just saying it’s Bitcoin.
For me it’s just understanding the practicality of it I guess, but I’m out by the lake waiting on the fish to school to get some tackle wet…so I’ll have to check out that Lorenzo protocol later.