Bitcoin and Ethereum to Unite: Developers Unveil Approach to Overcome Interoperability Problems

• Hemi Network has resorted to a unique feature to merge the blockchains of both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) to address the current vulnerabilities existing in cross-chain bridges.

• Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin has also assured that its developer team will address interoperability problems through some proposals on its roadmap. 

Several crypto developers have, over the years, explored different means to address the frequent occurrence of data breaches influenced by vulnerabilities in cross-chain bridges. After extensive consultation and research, blockchain protocol Hemi Network seems to have found the “magic wand” through the introduction of an innovative feature identified as “tunneling.” 

According to the founder of Hemi Network and an early core developer of Bitcoin, Jeff Garzik, the project would consider the two popular blockchains as “components for a larger supernetwork. Throwing more light on this, the team explained that tunneling would create a distinct environment for Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) to coexist, unlike the operations of the cross-chain bridges. 

To clear all confusion, the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer at Hemi Labs Max Sanchez, pointed out that tunneling differs from cross-chain bridges on fundamental grounds. According to him, their protocol creates an avenue for the network to adopt the full security of Bitcoin to secure cross-chain interactions. For now, its Hemi Virtual Machine (HVM) can create Bitcoin interoperability technology. At the heart of this, BitVM2 would play a significant role.

We are using the deep Bitcoin introspection in HVM to build an extremely secure, trust-minimized Bitcoin tunneling system based on an adapted version of BitVM2 that’s more capital-efficient and robust.

According to reports, BitVM2 was primarily designed to enable a roll-up that can ensure efficient transaction processing without compromising the security of the original Bitcoin network. Explaining the entire plan in simple terms, Sanchez stated that their connectivity would enable users to move Bitcoin and Ethereum from both networks into Hemi. 

People will be able to tunnel Bitcoin assets through Hemi to Ethereum, bringing highly secure Bitcoin-based asset tokenization to the entire Ethereum ecosystem.

Ethereum co-founder Speaks on Interoperability Issues and Latest Proposals

Amid the backdrop of this, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is assuring the community that cross-layer-2 interoperability problems will be addressed soon. According to him, the network has several Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) on its roadmap for this effect. One of them is the EIP-3370. Per reports, this proposal would unveil a new address standard meant to be adopted by wallets and Decentralized Applications (dApps). 

Another proposal is the EIP-7683, which would enable different Ethereum layer-2 networks to execute trade by creating a standard way for them. In addition to these, Buterin commented on the current zero-knowledge and optimistic rollups. 

I think people will be surprised by how quickly ‘cross-L2 interoperability problems stop being problems and we get a smooth user experience across the entire Ethereum-verse…Eventually, I think all rollups will go zk (and existing zk rollups will have to redo their tech stack), to finalize to Ethereum once per slot. But that’s like 5+ years away.