Setting out for a cross-chain future: Moving data across blockchains

Moving data between chains continues to be a significant pain point for developers and users alike, with high fees, long waiting times, and the headache of fragmented liquidity. We want to create experiences that just work – where deploying across multiple chains feels as simple as working within a single, unified environment.

Isolated environments = liquidity fragmentation

Assets are scattered across different networks that can't natively communicate with one another. We need to unify and standardize the liquidity layer to make data interoperable. Our goal is to make users' and developers' lives easier; they shouldn’t have to think about which network to use – just like nobody thinks about TCP or UDP when browsing the internet. Interoperability promises to break these silos, enabling chains to work together rather than in isolation 🤝.

To truly address these challenges, we need solutions that unify assets across chains. This is where developing standards for the Superchain Interop and broader Ethereum comes into play.

The future is cross-chain

The Wonderland team has been working towards a cross-chain future by developing tools and standards to make data interoperable, not only within the Superchain but also across broader ecosystems.

Wonderland has deep experience in this topic, having co-authored xERC20, which established a standard for sovereign bridged tokens. This standard allows tokens to move across chains via multiple bridge listings. Building on this foundation, the team helped design and fully implement SuperchainERC20, a cross-chain token interface for tokens to move around the Superchain.

To future-proof these cross-chain interactions, Wonderland alongside Uniswap Labs and OP Labs proposed the ERC-7802 . This standard addresses the chaos often associated with existing bridging mechanisms by introducing a unified token bridging interface for cross-chain minting and burning.

ERC-7802 is designed to work alongside xERC20, enabling the crafting, deploying, and movement of data across chains with a single interface. Instead of replacing xERC20, ERC-7802 and the xERC20 can be implemented together, allowing cross-chain interactions without friction for both existing and new tokens.

Assets were not originally designed for the cross-chain world, and upgrading systems in production is especially challenging in permissionless environments. Enabling existing assets to comply with interoperability standards is complex. However, we aim to ensure any migration is as smooth as possible by pursuing targeted solutions – such as unifying L1 liquidity and providing opt-in user migration options. This approach preserves user flexibility while ensuring fluid upgrades in specific scenarios, allowing existing dapps to operate unaffected as core contracts are adapted for interoperability.

A success case: Bridged USDC Standard for the OP Stack

USDC liquidity fragmentation has been a significant challenge, with multiple versions of USDC existing across different chains – such as native USDC, bridged USDC, and others. This fragmentation has complicated liquidity management and data movement across chains. To address this issue, Wonderland introduced opUSDC, a solution designed to streamline USDC deployment across OP Chains. It focuses on minimizing asset divergence by enabling a fluent upgrade from bridged USDC to native USDC.

Interoperable tokens for Ethereum

The immediate benefit of interoperability protocols is the uniform security of tokens that adopt them. As long as this protocols remain secure as the state transition functions they employ, tokens can move freely across chains without needing third-party bridges or liquidity providers. However, this process unfolds in two key stages:

1. Tokens for Intra-Clusters: Like what we and other projects are doing, where tokens adhere to an interop-bridge model within a shared ecosystem.
2. Tokens for Inter-Clusters: The natural Ethereum endgame is a future model that makes it easy to move tokens to potentially any rollup under the same standards and consistency.

Vitalik’s concept of radical token bridges illustrates how a rollup-like design can serve as a multi-canonical bridge architecture for any token. For everything else, intents plus clearing layer can help. While current cross-chain token frameworks partially fulfill this vision, there is ample opportunity for generalized standards that can ultimately make Ethereum more interoperable.

We see ERC-7802 as a significant step in achieving this vision of interoperable tokens for Ethereum. We are currently gathering community feedback and working on improving and finalizing this standard.

If you’re interested in contributing or providing insights, check out the proposed ERC-7802 and share your thoughts! We’re eager to incorporate community ideas to make this protocol even stronger.

What’s next: What is Wonderland working on?

Right now, the main focus is on addressing one of the biggest challenges with interoperable ETH: making withdrawals without liquidity restrictions. Currently, each chain retains its own liquidity, creating a mismatch between its existing ETH and what is actually available for withdrawals. To solve this, Wonderland is building the ETH Shared Lockbox, a singleton contract that will store the entire ETH liquidity, secured by the Superchain’s shared-proof architecture.

Many community members have been eager to start building on top of the cross-chain message features. That’s why, in addition to Supersim, Wonderland spun up the Interop Mock System. This system is designed to simulate and test cross-chain communication, ensuring everything works smoothly before full deployment. It allows developers to experiment with test networks like OP Sepolia and Unichain Testnet, using custom contracts and backend services to simulate the role of the sequencer and pre-deployed contracts.

Building Interop together

Interoperability is essential for Ethereum to truly thrive. Our aim is to consolidate fragmented assets into a unified pool that works across ecosystems, allowing smart contracts and dapps to interact fluidly.

Interoperable data are the foundation of this vision. By standardizing the way assets move and interact across chains, we can eliminate fragmentation and create an ecosystem where building for one blockchain means building for all.

Interop is the path forward, and we're excited to keep pushing the boundaries. That’s why the Wonderland team has committed to being core developers for the Optimism Collective, a long-term partnership aimed at making interop a reality. Many other improvements in the pipeline, each focused on making cross-chain interactions as painless as possible. Rest assured – those will be unveiled when the time is right!