We are excited to announce our participation as one of the 10 testnet validators in Union Bridge, contributing significantly to the enhanced security of the protocol. Union, a trailblazing trustless infrastructure layer, has recently unveiled its testnets, showcasing innovative architectures—CometBLS, Galois, and Voyager. Notably, Union has also secured a $4M seed funding round led by Galileo, marking a significant milestone in its journey.
Navigating the Bridging Challenge
In a year marked by over $1.6 billion in bridge hacks, the imperative for a robust bridging stack has never been clearer. Addressing this challenge, the Union team undertook a year-long stealth mode development, resulting in the creation of the first fully trustless and censorship-resistant infrastructure layer. The culmination of this endeavor is a remarkably cohesive architecture comprising three pivotal elements, ensuring efficient and secure data transfer and interaction across diverse blockchains.
Union’s distinctive consensus engine facilitates the native transfer of any asset to any chain, emphasizing efficiency, security, scalability, and interoperability. Unlike other bridging solutions, Union refrains from granting special authority to relayers, effectively mitigating the risk of private key exposure. Messages are verified using zero-knowledge proofs, adding an additional layer of security.
Unveiling Union Build
Functioning as a hyper-efficient, zero-knowledge interoperability layer, Union connects Appchains, Layer 1, and Layer 2 networks, facilitating general message passing, asset transfers, NFTs, and DeFi. Operating on consensus verification and devoid of dependencies on trusted third parties, oracles, multi-signatures, or [MPC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_multi-party_computation), Union’s flagship product is the Ethereum to IBC bridge. Leveraging Zero-Knowledge Cryptography and BLS Signatures, it establishes a trustless connection between Union’s Testnet and Ethereum’s Testnet.
Designed with scalability in mind, Union’s architecture adheres to principles of speed, security, future-proofing, and ease of use. It enables the native transfer of any asset to any chain, incorporates Interchain Queries (ICQ) for account abstraction, and supports coprocessor and storage proofs.
Union's Target Audience
Tailored for those who prioritize decentralization, reliability, and universal access to finance, Union’s core values revolve around speed, security, future-proofing, and user-friendly accessibility.
Core Values
- Fast: Bridging transactions are generated and settled promptly.
- Secure: Adherence to fork-choice rules.
- Future-proof: Core technology designed for the next decade.
- Easy to use: High-level API usable for developers from any ecosystem.
Union's Architectural Marvels
- CometBLS: An enhancement of Tendermint, suitable for zero-knowledge proving, improving proving times, and reducing costs.
- Galois: Union’s ZK efforts focused on consensus verification, emphasizing fast execution, low-cost, and decentralization.
- Voyager: An in-house relayer facilitating IBC relays for transferring packets and proofs between chains, enabling support for new networks without waiting for upstream support.
The Mission Persists
Union’s journey is characterized by unwavering dedication to providing trustless financial infrastructure. Their mission remains steadfast as they combat censorship, champion meaningful interoperability, and propel the expansion and scaling of web3 infrastructure for global accessibility.
A Glimpse into the Future
Union has achieved a monumental milestone with the first IBC connection between Ethereum and their testnet. Live logs of the connection between Union and Sepolia showcase the functionality of Voyager, a fully functional stateless relayer, and Galois, an efficient zero-knowledge prover. This setup features a CosmWasm contract and Solidity contract engaging in a ping-pong demonstration, representing the cutting-edge capabilities of Union’s groundbreaking technology.