Enhanced Security

The HUB

The HUB Bridging will work via a central focal point on the Ethereum network which enhances protocol security, where users will have to route through an intermediary chain (Ethereum) to bridge to an alternative supported chain.

Two transactions will be required in this system, to bridge assets from point A to point B. Every connected chain needs an individual liquidity pool for the same asset. Instead of opting for unified liquidity pools, Altitude utilizes separate liquidity pools for each chain path. This renders each chain path independent of the others, making the entire system resilient to chain outages (as only one liquidity pool pair would be affected, instead of an entire unified liquidity pool system). This comes with the drawback of dispersed liquidity between all chain paths. To mitigate that, Altitude utilizes a HUB to which each chain path is connected with one liquidity pool.

To bridge between two chains, of which neither is the HUB, users can always route through the HUB (Ethereum network) to reach their desired destination chain.

Referencing Stargate and Instant Guaranteed Finality

Instant Guaranteed Finality is the guarantee that funds will be available on the destination chain when a transaction is successfully committed on the source chain. This is achieved by ensuring sufficient liquidity on the destination chain so that any withdrawal during a cross chain transaction will not invalidate the pending transaction. In a decentralized system, this assurance of liquidity cannot come from the user, as it would prevent them from withdrawing provided liquidity at their discretion.

However, achieving Instant Guaranteed Finality through technical means is not possible, as it is impossible to execute a transaction on two or more chains simultaneously. Therefore, a bridging system using native assets (non-synthetic tokens on the destination chain) needs a large amount of funding to provide this guarantee, making it almost impossible to open its system to unbounded bridging channels.

Altitude's Approach: Secured Guaranteed Finality

Altitude’s cross-chain bridge provides a guarantee that funds on the source chain are committed when a transaction is successfully processed on the destination chain. This is different from Instant Guaranteed finality which guarantees the funds on the destination chain once the transaction is successfully committed on the source chain. If for whatever reason a user would like to revert their transaction back to the destination chain, they are able to, ensuring ownership of resources at every step.

Instead of relying on project-provided funds to guarantee a transaction, Altitude follows a more secure approach by manually validating a cross chain transaction on the destination chain. When a cross chain transaction is initiated, Altitude holds the user's funds on the source chain without changing the state of the bridge. The user can then choose to confirm or revoke the transaction on the destination chain, knowing that Altitude is holding the funds on the source chain.

If the user confirms the transaction, they can withdraw the desired amount on the destination chain, and the held funds are added to the liquidity on the source chain. If there is not enough liquidity on the destination chain (because of a withdrawal during transaction processing), the user can opt to revert the transaction. Since no state change has occurred yet, Altitude will simply return the held funds on the source chain to the user. The user can also choose to leave the transaction pending and wait for sufficient liquidity.

Open and Decentralized

Altitude's conservative approach not only secures a user's funds at the code level, but it also allows for non-curated and user-generated bridging paths. Altitude can support the bridging of any native asset between any two chains, without the need for large amounts of liquidity. This enables projects of any size to use Altitude and ensures that any technical decisions made by Altitude's future on-chain governance can be implemented regardless of available funds.