Sifchain Omni-EVM

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Omni-EVM is a bridge to Sifchain/Cosmos for any Blockchain compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine. 

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

Jazear Brooks, Co-founder, & Aidan Musnitsky, CTO, have been in the blockchain, and more specifically the cryptocurrency, space for a combined 13 years. Snowfork, a company started by Aidan, built Snowbridge, a bridge between Polkadot and Ethereum.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

For DeFi truly to work, seamless interoperability between blockchains is paramount. Currently, the most significant advantage of CEXes is their cross-chain interoperability. For DeFi to be truly successful, on-chain funds need to be liquid and fluid across ecosystems. This will be substantial for Cardano to integrate with new and existing global DeFi structures. 

Our research shows that EVM has become a standard for cross-chain operations. Every relevant project is able to bridge towards and interact with the Ethereum Virtual Machine.  

Omni-EVM will be relevant for the following stakeholders

• Cardano – as they will be able to bridge assets to Sifchain/Cosmos 
• Cosmos - as they will be able to bridge assets to Cardano 
• Sifchain - as they will be able to bridge assets to Cardano 
• All users of projects bridging to Sifchain/Cosmos this includes IBC and other  Omni-EVM bridges. Please see our submitted infographic for an overview over these projects. Its massive. 
• Liquidity providers – as they will get the ability to bridge tokens themselves and open/fund pools. 
• Projects building on Cardano – as they will be able to interact with Cosmos & Sifchain assets 
• Projects building on Cosmos & Sifchain – as they will be able to interact with Cardano assets 

Sifchain already secured competent developers and planned the implementation of the Omni-EVM bridge. 

• We will produce all relevant parts of the bridge 
• Updated set of smart contracts, called Peggy 2.0, which we will migrate existing Peggy 1.0 contracts to 
• Updated versions of our relayers and witnesses 
• Updated UI (including adding of custom token flow) 
• Formal audit reports 

Results of implementing Omni-EVM

• Assets from Cardano and Cosmos will be bridged among both ecosystems.  
• Cosmos users will be now exposed to Cardano and its ecosystem. Cardano users will now be exposed to Cosmos and its ecosystem. 
• New pools with those assets will be created on decentralized exchanges of both ecosystems. 

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

The bridge will connect the ecosystems of Cardano and Sifchain, so that assets will be able to easily, quickly, and cheaply migrate between both. 

This clearly leads to increased on-chain activity for Cardano.

Omni-EVM is enabling projects from Cardano to utilize Cosmos assets and vice versa. This is a major building block for collaborations and interoperable applications between those ecosystems.

The Omni-EVM solution will also enable other ecosystems to bridge towards Sifchain/Cosmos. The assets of those ecosystems can then be further bridged to Cardano as well. Potentially bridging thousands of projects to Cardano.

OMNI-EVM will offer the Cardano blockchain to achieve significant interoperability across all EVM compatible chains, and later on additional required blockchains. Initial chains would include Polygon, Moonbeam, Avalanche and many others.

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

1st Risk 

Developer fluctuation: In the current building phase for Blockchain, hiring and keeping able developers is a bottleneck. 

Mitigation 

The team responsible for developing Omni-EVM is comprised of 7 people, 5 engineers, 1 test engineer, and a Product Manager. On top of this, our Co-Founder Jazear is very experienced in bridge development and architecture as he was a lead developer on ThorChain and was responsible for the development of Sifchain’s Peggy 1.0 bridge from Cosmos to Ethereum. Jazear and Aidan are visionaries in bridge development and are both the main designers of our Peggy 2.0 architecture, which Omni-EVM will be enabled by. This team has been with Sifchain since the development of Peggy 1.0, and have been working diligently on the development of Peggy 2.0 for the last 1.5 years. We are in excellent relations with them and are engaging them in a variety of incentive programs to ensure fair economic participation and healthy work-life balance. 

2nd Risk 

Hacks: In recent history, there were some significant hacks targeting cross-chain bridges. Due to the architecture of bridges, single wallets that store assets are honey pots.  

 Mitigation 

We are being very careful with our development and have engaged in 4 different audits: two from well-known and respected parties, Certik and Halborn as well as two from independent developers. We will also have everyone who holds keys to the Peggy 2.0 bridge be on multi-sig hardware wallets. 

3rd Risk 

Legal threats to DeFi: With a variety of new regulations on the way for Blockchain and Defi, the terrains remains insecure. 

Mitigation 

Sifchain works extremely closely with our in-house legal team. We have taken a conservative approach when it comes to regulation interpretation. We have a completely decentralized validator set, our front-end is also completely decentralized, we have a SifDAO that controls many governance decisions, and we are constantly working towards total decentralization on all aspects of the product. 

This rigorous governance process including the vibrant and forward thinking DAO which is focused on ensuring a fully decentralised bridging product. It has been “war tested” for a significant amount of time with an existing Ethereum - Cosmos Bridge and has organically grown in a way to allow for additional bridges to be managed and incorporated with significant ease.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

• Migration Scripts - July 2022 
• Deliverable: Scripts that migrate the smart contracts to Peggy 2 including user data. 
• Migration Testing - August 2022 
• Deliverable: Testing verifying that user data and smart contracts are accurately migrated by the scripts. 
• Load Testing (Peggy/Sifnode) - August 2022 
• Deliverable: Testing demonstrating that transactions can be conducted over the the bridge in an environment whereby 100K tokens exist and that TPS is greater than 10 
• Sifnode Upgrades (For Peggy 2.0) - September 2022 
• Deliverables: 
• Tokenregistry Modifications 
• Modify token registry to store Peggy 1.0 denom 
• Store old denoms in the field instead of removing them 
• Check tokenregistry usage to verify logic 
• Remove IBC Export, CLP permission for old denoms (Which have Peggy 1.0 name in base denom) 
• IBC Modifications 
• Modify OnRecvPacket to burn Peggy 1.0 denom and mint Peggy 2.0 Denom, on IBC import of Peggy 1.0 token 
• CLP Modifications 
• Add migrator for CLP pools 
• Add migration of reward period to new denom 
• Bank Module Modifications 
• Wrap sdk Bank Module in a custom Module 
• Add migrator for all account balances to migrate to a new denom 
• Initial Audit Remediations - September 2022 
• Deliverable: Code changes and explanations for issues found by auditors 
• Final Auditing and Testing - October 2022 
• Deliverables: 
• Formalized audit report by Halborn, Certik, Denali, Elliot outlining final audit and remediations 
• Passing integration and regression tests 
• Launch - October 2022 
• Deliverable: Peggy 2.0 updated relayer, witness, sifnode, smart contract, and UI code with working testing/migration scripts connecting Sifchain and Ethereum 
• Connection with Cardano – November 2022 
• Deliverable: Integration of Peggy 2.0 with Cardano, allowing users to import/export assets between Sifchain & Cardano with the Sifchain UI. 

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Below you will find a list of total costs for the development of Omni-EVM 

. The technical nature of Omni-EVM allows to bridge towards multiple ecosystems. That is why we are distributing the costs among those ecosystems instead of applying for the full amount here. 

Total cost for Omni-EVM – $1.449.500 

10% of those cost $144.950 

Rounded application amount $150.000

BREAKDOWN 

AUDITS $340.000  

HALBORN 

Halborn conducted a security assessment on all protocol codes on Sifchain nodes and the Ethereum bridge, Peggy, prior to its production release. They also audited the Sifchain token sale smart contracts. 

- Preliminary Sifnode, relayer audit  

Halborn: $100.000 

CERTIK 

To protect their users by finding and fixing known vulnerabilities that could cause unauthorized access, loss of funds, cascading failures, and/or other vulnerabilities. Sifchain appointed CertiK to review and verify the implementation of the Sifnode project against its specifications. 

Certik: $ 240.000 

Development $1.260.000 

Peggy Development Team (includes 1 PM, 5 engineers, 2 dedicated testing resources): $105.000/ month. 

Development has been in progress for roughly 9 months. The remaining development will take 3 months. 

BizDev & Promotion $45.000  

Application costs $10.000 

Engaging with users and projects building on Cosmos and Cardano to utilize the bridge $10.000 

PR & Influencer awareness campaign $25.000  

Community Management & Support $4.500  

Extra support resources in telegram & discord to assist users in utilizing the bridge $4.500 

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Some Core Team: 

- Jazear Brooks, Co-Founder Sifchain: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jazearbrooks/  

- Aiden Musnitzky, CTO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanmusnitzky/  

- Jon Hancock, Director of Engineering: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-hancock-094396/  

- Casey Arrington, Product Direction/Head of BD: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseyturnerarrington/  

- Tim Lind, Core Sifnode Engineer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-lind-a8104320/ 

- Tiến Nguyễn Khắc, Front-End Engineer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tien/  

- Alan Soares, Front-End Engineer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alanrsoares/  

- James Moore, Peggy Engineer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesmmooreiv/  

- And more 

Auditors: 

- Halborn: https://halborn.com/ 

- Certik: https://www.certik.com/  

- Elliot Friedman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elliot-friedman-blockchain/  

- Denali Marsh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denali-marsh/  

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

The current funding calculations include the final version of the bridge. The bridge will be maintained out of Sifchain funds infinitely. There is no further need for funding from Catalyst. 

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

1st Metric  

• Volume of Sifchain / Cosmos assets being bridged to Cardano  
• Volume of Cardano assets being bridged to Sifchain / Cosmos 

2nd Metric 

• Mentions of Omni-EVM and the bridge to Cardano in our influencer and PR campaign.  

3rd Metric 

• TVL of Sifchain / Cosmos assets being bridged to Cardano  
• TVL of Cardano assets being bridged to Sifchain / Cosmos 

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

1. The smart contracts are successfully audited 
2. The smart contracts are successfully uploaded Cardano EVM and Sifchain Blockchains 
3. The web portal to the bridge is live and operational 
4. The first transfers are being made by the community 

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

This is an entirely new proposal.