Hey Steemians,
I wanted to acknowledge this great project because it would make Dogecoin "Smart Contract-Ready" - verified by the PoW of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency (and some sort of cutting-edge blockchain tech to be invented).
Sidechaining the Shibe
A sidechain is just a separate blockchain. It is attached to the main chain / primary blockchain using a two-way peg which allows tokens to be interchangeable and moved across the chain at a fixed deterministic exchange rate.
So, how will the sidechains work with the doggy coins?
This is a technical development (not a new currency) where Dogecoins can be frozen (not burnt) to issue tokens on the Ethereum chain at a 1:1 rate. Those tokens can later be given up (we're not sure if this will be a burn or a freeze) to get the original Dogecoins back, again at a 1:1 rate (u/rnicolle Reddit, 2018).
Sidechains works like this: On the main chain, tokens will be sent to an address where they're completely immobilized by custody of an exchange, a multi-sig notary system(i.e. a federation), a voting system, SPV-proofs or a hybrid form of these. Once the immobilization transaction has been confirmed by the custody, a message to the sidechain protocol allows creating a certain amount of tokens on the sidechain. The advantage is that the sidechain protocol can have multiple features like smart contracts or lower transaction fees. Vice versa, after transactions are done on the sidechain, one can immobilize the tokens by sending them to a certain side chain address. Finally, it will be spendable again in the main chain, under the control of whoever last owned them on the sidechain.
Think of it like poker chips; you submit Dogecoins, get chips, use them in a specific context (Ethereum contracts) then return them to get Dogecoins back again. There's never a change of exchange rate, you get the same number of tokens as you had Dogecoins, and vice-versa (u/rnicolle Reddit, 2018).
Official channels and Docs
Here are the most active channels and repos about the Dogethereum bridge project:
- r/dogethereum
- r/dogecoin
- Whitepaper: Using Superblocks to Bridge Dogecoin to Ethereum, published on July 31th, 2018
- Github: Dogecoin <-> Ethereum bridge docs
Current Status
There is a Doge–Eth-Bounty. However, the fund has not increased since 2 years. Not sure if the voting members are still active on this:
The DAO has 8 voting members: Myself, Vitalik (he has 2 votes), Ming (executive director of the foundation), Piper Merrian (Independent developer), Hudson Jameson (Community member souptacular), Ross Nicoll (dogecoin developer) and George Hallam (Foundation and Ethcore) (u/avsa, 2016).
I really hope there will be more money and more development for this super interesting project. Let me know if there's any news. I would be proud to be the first to blog about updates.
Appendix: Be aware of the fake project Dogethereum.com
A small scammer coin now brings a lot of confusion to the community. They stole the word creation "Dogethereum" and used it for their own PR purposes.
They have nothing to do with the Doge Ethereum Bridge project and nothing to do with the Dogecoin core developers.
So that the original project is not confused with the Ethereum hard fork, some fellow shibes suggest calling the DGX/ETH bridge "Shibereum".
