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Polymer Labs

• Overview
• Approach
• Sample Process Flow
• Design Notes
• Code Review
  • Signing Mechanisms
  • Cryptographic Primitives
  • Proving Mechanisms
  • Relayer Mechanisms
  • Light Client Functionality
  • Token Lockers
• References
• Appendices
• Footnotes

Overview

Polymer’s¹ modular IBC² design allows for chains, like Ethereum³, to easily integrate IBC transport and become interoperable across all ecosystems in a decentralized manner.

Our protocol combines a novel consensus engine⁴, zero knowledge technology⁵, and modular IBC⁶ to create the most efficient and scalable IBC routing solution. Polymer is the first chain dedicated to the routing of IBC packets.

Approach

Sample Process Flow

Design Notes

Code Review

• plonky2: a SNARK implementation based on techniques from PLONK and FRI. It has since expanded to include tools such as Starky, a highly performant STARK implementation.
  • plonky2-solidity-verifier
  • plonky2-circom: Plonky2 verifier in Circom
  • plonky2-ed25519: SNARK verification circuits of a digital signature scheme Ed25519 implemented with Plonky2.
  • plonky2-sha256: SNARK circuits of a cryptographic hash function SHA-256 implemented with Plonky2.
  • plonky2-sha512: SNARK circuits of a cryptographic hash function SHA-512 implemented with Plonky2.
  • plonky2-pairing

Signing Mechanisms

Cryptographic Primitives

Proving Mechanisms

Relayer Mechanisms

Light Client Functionality

Token Lockers

References

Appendices

Footnotes

1. An Introduction to Polymer Labs, Cosmos, and IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication): Polymer Chain provides a seamless way to provide cross chain communication by utilizing IBC to connect chains even when they may not support IBC natively. ↩

2. INTER‑BLOCKCHAIN COMMUNICATION PROTOCOL: IBC is an interoperability protocol for communicating arbitrary data between arbitrary state machines. ↩

3. The Multi-hop IBC upgrade will take IBC to Ethereum and beyond: A discussion on some key areas of improvement that Polymer is tackling to upgrade IBC functionality and expand the IBC network across the industry. ↩

4. zkMint: The First ZK-friendly Tendermint Consensus Engine: Polymer’s solution that optimizes IBC across all major chains. ↩

5. Developing the Most Truly Decentralized Interoperability Solution : Polymer ZK-IBC: ZK-IBC allows different blockchain protocols to communicate with each other without trusting third parties. It does this by verifying the blockchain consensus on-chain. ↩

6. Modular IBC for the Modular World: IBC network topology is changing from a homogenous and densely connected network to a heterogenous and sparsely connected network. Modular IBC adapts the IBC protocol to this dynamic environment. ↩