USDC to Regen Ledger via Gravity Bridge

Governance
1

Greetings Regenerates,

Now that Prop 13 has passed, the Regen community has approved a list of well-defined guidelines on what criteria are important when choosing viable currencies to be included in the EcoCredit allow list.

The intention of this post is to open the discussion for a proposal that would create a bridge between Regen and Gravity Bridge, thus opening the possibility of adding USDC, an Ethereum based stablecoin and other ERC20 assets, to Regen Ledger transactions.

We encourage the Regen community to consider the pros and cons of using Gravity Bridge to unlock liquidity to Ethereum and other ERC20 assets.

We encourage the Regen community to consider the risks and rewards of allowing Metamask/Cosmostation users with ERC20 assets in their wallets to have the ability to transact seamlessly with the Regen Marketplace.

USDC is probably the primary currency of interest as of now, although the bridge would open up the possibility of other ERC20 assets as well.

Please review the following gathered information and we look forward to your contributions to this discussion! #WenEarth

What is Gravity USDC?

USDC is USD Coin issued by Centre, a partnership between Coinbase and Circle.

Gravity USDC is USDC that has been bridged across Gravity Bridge to make it IBC compatible

For recap, the Regen Prop 13 guidelines ask:

Is the token in question a currency?
USDC is a fully reserved stablecoin that is externally audited. Please see more details here.

Is the token in question IBC compatible?
USDC is locked in the Gravity Bridge contract and from there an IBC representation is minted. Gravity USDC is IBC compatible.

Is the token in question liquid, stable and safe to use?

USDC is the largest and most credible stablecoin available at this time.

Gravity Bridge is the most decentralize

2

Gravity Bridge is the most widely adopted bridge in Cosmos, with over half of the IBC enabled chains connected - https://www.gravitybridge.net/post/gravity-bridge-q3-updates, has been in production the longest, and is supported by a wide variety of teams and developers, across projects like Injective, Sommelier and Umee.

It has a non-upgradeable contract and has been audited by Informal, Least Authority, and C4Arena. Axelar relies on an upgradeable 4 of 8 multisig contract. This kind of centralized control is against the trust mechanisms core to decentralized blockchains.

Part of the core of Regen and blockchain in general is aligning users and infrastructure participants in an open and permissionless way, which Gravity aligns well with.

There are no exclusive commitments or contracts necessary - just the support and use by two aligned blockchain communities. In this case, Axelar’s business model relies on capturing exclusivity and siloing, whereas Gravity has open and sustainable economics. Further, the Gravity community has historically voted to support shared incentives and alignment with the projects it is integrated with.

Axelar has not shared any token incentives with any projects it has integrated with, and there is no public market for the tokens, so those communities could not participate in Axelar governance. Regen community should have the opportunity to have a say, vote, and participate in the bridge ecosystem. With Axelar, the private investors, developers and insiders control everything, including the front end and relayers, which make a central point of failure and a potential for exploitation.

Here are some thoughts on bridges from another blockchain in Cosmos that directly interacts wtih real world users, Cheqd, and why they chose the Gravity Bridge. [CHEQ tokens are now available on Ethereum | cheqd](CHEQ tokens are now available on Ethereum | cheqd

3

Great idea. Metamask signing, potential for Regen-specific custom UI, and Gravity’s security model are all strong arguments.

4

Yooooo, great discussion you started here @David Fortson!

To my knowledge USDC seems like the best stable coin to go with at the moment and also fits Prop 13 pretty well as you suggest. I feel your perhaps over inflating it a bit on the better world criteria but perhaps thats just my perspective; I don’t think it’s particularly bad on that front anyway though so whatever!

The context you’ve provided is also pretty great. I’ve learnt a lot about the Cosmos ecosystem from the leads you’ve peppered around and your comparison between Gravity Bridge and Axelar feels thorough.

The big issue I see here is the liquidity issues of stable coin non fungibility. Thats a total drag, though it seems that Cresent is a good pathway through these for the time being. Very much appreciate learning about them.

At present, it would seem to me this proposal is probably one of the better pathways for DeFi to meet ReFi. I support your proposition, good stuff!

5

I like the idea of listing multiple versions of USDC. I see no reason not to have many options on the currency allow list as long as the currency in question meets our criteria of safety, usability and liquidity. I think having metamask integration is great. I also think that the UX axelar has created is very usable, and there is more liquidity around axlUSDC in the ecosystem right now I believe (at least on osmosis).
I’d like to see both axlUSDC and gravityUSDC listed in an ideal world!
I’d also like to see E Euro, and cUSD, and Inter all listed.

I’d also like to see Atom’s listed, and perhaps it’s worth discussing the inclusion of REGEN as well.

At this phase I think a plurality ok options for users in the marketplace is best. We are not here to pick winners, but to enable regen network credit issuers and holders to chose to use the currency of their choosing.

6

Greetings everyone, thanks for weighing in, enjoyed reading this thread. Thanks @David Fortson for posting.

I’d like to begin by stating that my main concerns are: Best UX and Security.

Best UX:

I think the bridging mechanism should be under the hood, obfuscated away; the user should only need to connect their wallet and buy. I think we should accept as many wallets as possible: Keplr and Metamask being priorities to begin with.

If for instance a buyer connects with Metamask, having Ethereum-based USDC in their wallet, they would just simply choose the credits they wish to purchase, choose USDC as payment method, and buy. I think that whether that USDC is converted to gUSDC or axlUSDC should be the developers’ responsibility, not the buyer’s.

If for instance a buyer connects with an IBC wallet such as Keplr, then—depending on how ICA evolves—for the payment option the Marketplace could have a drop-down which shows assets and balances in their connected wallet filtered by the allow-list.

I think we want the process to be as simple as possible for buyers and sellers; and we do not want to require clients to need to become defi savvy, having to open multiple wallets, having to use dapps and bridging interfaces to make a purchase.

If they have any acceptable form of USDC in their wallet, they should be able to connect their wallet directly to Regen Marketplace and make their purchase by signing just one tx.

This documentation describes how this could be achieved via Gravity Bridge: https://github.com/Gravity-Bridge/Gravity-Docs/blob/main/docs/frontend-creation.md

Security

@Will Szal thanks for referencing the “Great Bridge Off”, which as you say, included many discussions, too many to summarize, but that perhaps one factor in Osmosis’s choice for Axelar was that since USDC is a centralized asset, having a decentralized bridge was not so important in their

7

Thanks Cory.

Given these issues, I would assume that for the time being, sellers of eco-credits will want to prioritize different market segments, and therefore use different currencies (given current fragmentation). Therefore placing a slightly higher burden on the eco-credit listing party to chose the right currency (atom, a variety of USDC, eeuro etc) makes the most sense to me. Eventually I think we will likely wants to pair this down at least form a UX experience. But I continue to be skeptical that a “chose the right currency” is the right approach, and feel like “allow safe currencies as needed while the market sorts itself out” is a better approach despite some UX issues for people listing credits. Thinking out loud: I wonder if there could be different user interfaces that a user can toggle (IBC native, Eth native, non crypto native), which would each limit the currencies to the critical path more easily accessed by that user group.

Also note: listing atom would take away all of these issues (or regen for that matter)

I also wonder if there isn’t a stable swap or currency swap feature that could make this much easier in partnership with osmosis.

8

Hey everyone, chiming in here.

There’s a lot of discussion around the Osmosis bridge off that revolve around constraints that simply don’t exist anymore in the Cosmos Ecosystem.

The two major problems are splitting liquidity and the UX of sending a user to another chain’s UI to swap if there’s a mismatch.

Obviously neither of these problems exist on Etheruem. The creation of a new stable doesn’t cause a panic about splitting liquidity and the UX of ‘having the right token’ is easily handled by simply performing the swap for the user without them having to leave the site.

Using interchain accounts and more modern advanced AMM strategies the Cosmos ecosystem has also moved beyond these problems.

The Regen interface can use interchain accounts to dispatch a swap to Crescent, Osmosis, Iris, Sifchain, or any dex transparently without having the the user switch chains in Keplr.

Just like you can just call an AMM on Ethereum it’s now possible just to ‘call out to a dex’ from the Regen frontend.

Most of these chains already have interchain accounts deployed.

Likewise ranged liquidity pools like those available on Crescent do the same thing they did on Ethereum, solve the liquidity splitting problem by increasing liquidity efficiency or stableswaps by 10x or more.

As a team very familiar with the fundamentals of both Cosmos and Ethereum we’re more excited about interchain accounts and the explosion of new Cosmos appchains than we are about ETH2.

Cosmos is bringing the scaling vision of many chains acting together to life much faster than Ethereum is, with a vibrancy that can only be powered by individual sovereignty.

The problems outlined here are technical problems, with technical solutions that allow the Regen community to interact more freely with the entire Cosmos ecosystem. Not look back on what the problems used to be.

9

Great discussion happening here. Today’s Regenerati News Hour also had a rich conversation on this topic that you can listen to here: https://twitter.com/regen_network/status/1557743759734886403?s=20&t=9QF3sklN1HNkOrQpHhu94A

10

Add Gravity USDC to Regen Marketplace Currency Allow List

After a number of team discussions, it has been concluded that Gravity Bridge will be very useful to the Regen Marketplace by providing a user onboarding experience targeted to ETH native users via MetaMask and to non-crypto native users, creating an easy route for sending USDC to a Regen account.

Details of implementation:

  • Targeting ETH natives / non-crypto natives

  • Direct route GB to Regen preferred over using counter-party DEX such as Canto or Crescent

  • The exact denom (i.e. ibc/ABC123…) needs to be included in the Regen gov allow list proposal

  • A Regen/GB ibc relayer is needed and is being created. The relayer creates the specific ibc denom for the channel.

  • The Auto-Forwarding to Regen wallets will require a gov proposal on the Gravity Bridge chain. This proposal will be drafted and socialized to Gravity Bridge voters.

  • With Auto-Forwarding a MetaMask tx can send USDC directly to a Regen wallet

  • The sendToCosmos() function needs to be presented to MetaMask, so a UI such as https://bridge.blockscape.network/ is required.

The details above pertain to the first iteration, but looking forward at future iterations which can be built upon Gravity Bridge, we foresee:

  • A streamlined UI for serving the EcoCredit marketplace could be created to replace bridge.blockscape.network.

  • More streamlining features once ICA is deployed, making the user experience practically seamless.

  • A Debit Card onramp through Gravity Bridge should become available by the first quarter of 2023, which would enable direct Fiat->USDC->EcoCredit purchases.

In addition to the strategic implementation details above, Gravity Bridge also provides these key infrastructure advantages:

  • Open access, permissionless, decentralized & neutral bridge

  • Secured by a 150 tendermint node validator set forming consensus and governing bridge (Gravity Bridge does not simply use multisi

11

My gratitude to LOA Labs for initiating this proposal. It appears to me to be well thought-through and thorough. I also appreciate the level of conscious and constructive dialogue that has happened here related to the proposal.

While I generally feel that welcoming the ETH community would be beneficial, I still have my hesitations related to bridge security, especially in these still (relatively) early days. In the case of this proposal, I wonder if it is necessary to implement a bridge now or possibly wait a while until there is at least a semi-confirmed demand from the ETH community, i.e. build it when we know they will come, rather than build it and hope they come :slight_smile: This could also give bridge security models time to evolve and strengthen.

I also have a number of unanswered questions related to the Gravity Bridge development and funding. And I’m not suggesting to revive that debate here.

I hear the point about Axelar’s multisig. I don’t understand the difference in scope between building something on Evmos, for example vs. integrating Gravity Bridge. This makes it hard for me to determine which is the better option.

It’s for these reasons and out of respect for the level of effort and discourse that’s taken place to-date, we’ll vote to abstain for this proposal.