We are delighted to announce the successful mainnet launch of the Syscoin Bridge protocol, representing a significant technological leap in blockchain interoperability. Block 348,000 was reached at 4:02AM UTC on January 28th 2020, activating Syscoin Bridge. Welcome to interoperability that aligns with Nakamoto ideals - trustless, permissionless, decentralized, secure, and available.

In the past, many interoperability efforts introduced challenges such as centralization, custodianship, mutating coin supply, the need for market liquidity providers, and involvement of a third token or chain as an intermediary.

Syscoin Bridge, with its elegant design, is the answer to these challenges. We have also introduced and implemented an all new concept, cross-chain fractional supply, which retains tokens’ designed supply characteristics across multiple chains - a product of the underlying burn/mint mechanism utilizing SPV Proofs.

Right now, ERC-20 tokens can utilize Syscoin Bridge to inherit numerous benefits and capabilities from Syscoin Platform’s ecosystem:

• Ideal store of value through Bitcoin merge mined Proof of Work and a Bitcoin-compliant core
• Decentralization for Ethereum DeFi platform users
• Cross-chain fractional supply and fungibility
  • Token supply integrity is maintained across multiple chains via burn/mint using SPV proofs. Operate across chains without locking coins, or otherwise skewing real supply
  • Maintain sovereign ownership and control of your tokens throughout interoperations
  • Token fungibility emerges from use of zero-knowledge proofs. Transaction trackers now must evolve to remain relevant in the interoperability landscape.
• Syscoin Token Platform with Z-DAG Protocol
  • Decentralized token payment layer useful for point-of-sale, providing near-instant transactions at greatly diminished fees.
  • Throughput that exceeds credit card networks, proven by Whiteblock
  • Case-by-case determination of ideal speed/security trade-off through the use of an interactive protocol with probabilistic security catching up to 99.9999% of double spend events in ten seconds or less
  • Onchain settlement of all near-instant payments
• Alleviate Scaling Pressure
  • Free resources on traffic-laden networks by off-loading to Syscoin Platform, an ideal network for simple value transfers, which often represent the majority of traffic.
  • Improve network performance for flagship services such as turing complete smart contracts.

In turn, Syscoin Platform Tokens gain the utility of Ethereum, like turing complete smart contracts, and its wide array of tools such as MetaMask, hardware wallets, DEX and DeFi platforms.

The SYSX ERC-20 is a live, working instance of a Syscoin Bridge integration. It can serve as a reference implementation for developers. View the Ethereum smart contract here.

To learn more about Syscoin Ethereum Bridge, how to use it and how it works, visit https://bridge.syscoin.org/#how-it-works.

For a user-friendly walkthrough, check out this guide written by Syscoin Community member JohnP.

The uses made possible by Syscoin Bridge protocol are vast. This technology opens a new world of options and viability to tokens, applications, and owners. Here are just a few examples. What can you build? 

Tokens at Point-of-sale

In recent news, fast food outlet Burger King recently announced it would accept cryptocurrencies as payment in Venezuela. Using the Syscoin Bridge, merchants and token users can benefit from near-instant transaction confirmation; minuscule transaction fees; case by case determination of speed/security trade-off; and protect themselves against the risk of double-spends. Utilizing stablecoins such as Tether’s Ethereum-based assets via the Syscoin Bridge could open up new avenues of payment for merchants and users alike

Decentralize by Choice

Users of platforms with less-proven consensus mechanisms, such as Proof of Stake or its variants, or otherwise facing potential centralization issues, now have the option of utilizing the Bitcoin-compliant merge mined PoW available to them via this bridging technology. Syscoin Platform is a viable option for storing value on a blockchain using the most proven consensus available, as well as a decentralized means of fast, low cost, secure token transactions using Z-DAG. The flexibility of having such options is particularly helpful to users of Ethereum’s sundry DeFi platforms. As adoption increases for this interoperability protocol, the banked, underbanked and unbanked will gain ways of more easily achieving and guaranteeing sovereignty of ownership no matter their platform of origin.

Exchanges (including DEX)

Syscoin Bridge combined with the speed and high-throughput fulfillment provided by Syscoin Token Platform can enable performant exchanges.

Interchain integration through Syscoin Bridge is not limited to Ethereum alone. Our ecosystem participants will continue to weigh the benefits of potential future integrations.

Syscoin Bridge and this successful launch was made possible by the work of Blockchain Foundry, Syscoin Platform core developers Jag Sidhu and Willy Ko, Ethereum developers, Art-of-Bug, Syscoin Foundation, SDMT, and the entire Syscoin Community. Your work, dedication and contributions are greatly appreciated!

Established in 2014, Syscoin was one of the earliest crowdfunded projects in the blockchain sector, supported by early Bitcoin technologists and enthusiasts, prior to Ethereum's introduction of a formalized ICO market. It successfully launched its first mainnet in the same year. Since then, it has achieved numerous notable milestones, including developing the first truly decentralized DAG network, becoming a founding member of the Microsoft Decentralized Identity Foundation, and joining 2Tokens as a technology partner. Syscoin is now represented by the Syscoin Foundation, led by Lead Core Developer Jag Sidhu.