Ronin Bridge
The Ronin Bridge allows funds to be transferred from Ethereum to the Ronin Network and vice versa. The main features of the bridge are: Fast & seamless transactions with almost instant confirmation. Drastically reduced gas fees. Fast & seamless transactions with almost instant confirmation. Drastically reduced gas fees. The ability to withdraw Axie assets back to Ethereum Mainnet. Simplified on-boarding for new users, through a customized wallet solution.
Supported networks
Supported networks
Supported currencies
Smart Contracts
Audits and Exploits
We’re not found any audits or exploits. If you find something or have any information about it, please, contact us at [email protected]
Limits
Limits wasn’t found. If you find it, please, contact us to [email protected] (include the name of the bridge in the subject line of your e-mail)
Bridge Token
Bridge token wasn’t found. If you have any information, please, contact us [email protected]
What is ?
What is Ronin?
Ronin is a sidechains built with Ethereum built specifically for the popular blockchain game Axie Infinity. Ronin was a masterless samurai in feudal Japan, and Ronin personifies the developers’ desire to take the fate of the product into their own hands. Ronin unlocks explosive growth for Blockchain gaming and collectible projects.
What is Ethereum?
Ethereum is both a blockchain network, an application platform, and a full-fledged programming language. The goal of the project is to create and publish distributed applications that do not require third party trust.
What is Ronin Network?
Ethereum’s Layer-1 failed in the area of scalability, and that has led to the development of several Layer-2 projects. One of them is Ronin Network, a mainnet launched in February 2021 to cater to the needs of millions of gamers who were having issues with the congestion and high gas fee issue in Axie Infinity. This article is going to review the Ronin Network, how it works, and what makes it such a thriving innovation.
What is Ronin?
Ronin is an EVM-based blockchain built for developers who wish to build player-owned community games rather than centralized models. Ronin was developed as a way to support the growing online ecosystem.
What is the Ronin Network?
Ronin Network is an Ethereum-based sidechain developed specifically for blockchain gaming. It was created to aid game developers in building play-to-earn games with player-owned economies and high scalability. Ronin is home to Axie Infinity, one of the biggest play-to-earn games in the ecosystem.
The network was developed and launched in February 2021 by Sky Mavis, whose ultimate goal is for Axie Infinity and other future gaming releases to be seamless, faster, and more economical. The network has already achieved great success, amassing 5 million USD in total assets, and around 2 million users have downloaded its wallet.
History of Ronin
Ronin was developed by Sky Mavis, a tech-focused game studio created by Jeffrey Zirlin, a Yale graduate who worked on Sky Mavis for over four years, and Alexander Leonard Larsen, a blockchain specialist who was also a part founder of Axie Infinity.
The network was developed when the Loom network and its developers decided to optimize the network to function as an enterprise solution instead of focusing on user-friendly applications. This move did not sit well with the Sky Mavis team, and they later decided to end the partnership and develop their own blockchain.
The team’s decision to build an entirely new blockchain was so as to prevent the same issue with Loom from happening again. By building the Ronin network, Sky Mavis can ensure that the chain is fully optimized for Axie Infinity and can also modify the chain’s characteristics however they see fit.
How Does Ronin Network Work?
Ronin Network has amassed a lot of funds and generated an equivalent amount of buzz around it, with millions of users downloading its app. This is because of certain mechanisms that work behind the scenes to make it such a valuable network.
Proof-of-Authority Consensus
Unlike some other blockchains that make use of a proof-of-stake or a proof-of-work mechanism, the Ronin network makes use of a proof-of-authority mechanism. Proof-of-authority is an algorithm used with blockchains that ensures rapid transactions through a consensus mechanism that uses identity as a stake.
It is able to achieve such speeds due to its limited number of validators and relatively centralized system. The Ronin team has plans to shift to a Proof-of-Staked-Authority (PoSA) model, which combines a PoA and a delegated proof-of-stake. This combination will allow RON token holders to be validators as well, which will greatly increase the decentralization of the network.
Validators
The developers carefully select the Ronin network validators because they are essential to the network’s speed and effectiveness. This selection is based on the validators’ credibility, and unlike in proof-of-stake, where the validators stake tokens, the Ronin network validators put their reputations on the line.
Rather than the tokens they own, validators put their reputations on the line. Validators who stake their reputation risk losing it if they become bad actors or if they affect the network in a negative way. Some of the network’s validators include:
- Nansen
- Google Cloud
- Animoca Brands
- Binance
- Ubisoft
- Dapp.com
- Sparq Ventures
- NFT Bulwark, etc.
Delegators
A delegator is a member of the ecosystem that delegates their stake to the validator and earns certain rewards in the process. This gives delegators access to the network and they can earn rewards without the individual having the necessary skill set and expertise required to run a validator node.
Most delegators choose validators based on several factors like the overall performance of the validator and their commission rate. Once their validator is chosen, the delegator can then choose to either stake all available RON or set a certain amount to delegate.
Ronin Ecosystem
Ronin Wallet
The Ronin Wallet is the primary wallet built for the Ronin network. The standard RON, RRC20, and RRC721 are stored on the blockchain platform. The wallet is versatile and can be used for different tasks like the exchange of standard tokens and gaining access to the popular Axie Infinity, along with other dApps on the Ronin platform.
It can also be used to send and receive other cryptocurrencies and NFTs without paying ridiculously high gas fees. The non-custodial wallet is built to allow access only to the owner. Thereby granting the owner total control over the wallet and unrestricted access to the funds placed in the wallet.
Users are given a special seed phrase or private key that grants them access to the wallet. However, if the user were to ever lose the seed phrase, the user would lose access to the wallet since the seed phrase or private key is unrecoverable, even by the developers.
Katana (The Ronin DEX)
Each blockchain has its own decentralized exchange (DEX), a platform where users are able to exchange tokens with each other without any restrictions. Ronin network also has its own DEX called Katana.
Katana allows users to easily exchange tokens within the Axie Infinity ecosystem without having to leave the Ronin blockchain. This cuts down on the need to bridge assets out of the ecosystem and reduces friction when exchanging Axies tokens.
The Katana DEX has 3 major liquidity pools (SLP/WETH, AXS/WETH, RON/WETH). Users can decide to become liquidity providers by staking relevant pairing tokens. Katana liquidity providers are rewarded 0.25% of each trade that happens through the pool, proportionate to their pool share.
Ronin Bridge
Ronin Bridge is an Ethereum sidechain developed for Axie Infinity that allows users to transfer assets between the sidechain and the Ethereum mainnet. Users that wish to make use of Ronin Bridge need to have an Ethereum wallet like Metamask before they interact with the DEX.
It is currently the world’s third-largest bridge. It is only behind Polygon and Avalanche in terms of the total volume of assets transferred. This is because Ronin Bridge is an easy-to-operate DEX that facilitates rapid, two-way transfers of assets that take less than 15 minutes to complete.
Projects Built on Ronin
Ronin has a plethora of projects on its network, it’s almost hard to keep up with all of them, but here are a few popular projects that are worth taking a look at:
- Dexify ltd
- Smooth love potion
- Katana DEX
- WETH
- Axie infinity
What is the RON Token?
The RON token is the native token of the Ronin network, and it has a couple of uses on the platform, like payment of gas fees and securing the Axie Infinity and other games and platforms developed on the chain. It can also be used in the governance of the Ronin community and for staking through validators to earn rewards on Ronin.
RON Tokenomics
RON was launched through a pool on the Ronin network’s native Katana Dex and will be shared through an incentivized liquidity program. The total supply of the token is capped at 1 billion and will be reduced every quarter.
The token distribution is to be completed within 294 months and is distributed as follows:
- The community will get 30% of the total tokens in liquidity mining, content creation, rewards programs, grants, and hackathons.
- The developing and advisory team is to get around 30%.
- 15% of the total market supply goes to the ecosystem in form of grants, investments, applications, tooling to Ronin, and hackathons bringing game-changing content.
- The remaining 25% is to be distributed as staking rewards.
How To Buy RON Token
RON is available on Gate.io. To get RON, the first step is to create an account and complete the KYC process. Once you have added funds to your account, check out the steps to buy RON on the spot or in the derivatives market.
News On RON Network
Ronin network announces the onboarding of 16 new validators for its new testnet project Saigon, which allows developers to test and deploy smart contracts. It was launched in November 2022 by the Ronin team.
The Ronin network makes use of two kinds of validators; standard validators and governing validators. These two perform similar functions but have certain distinguishing features. Standard validators perform block validation and production while governing validators perform the same functions, plus the network’s decision-making processes.
The new validators are categorized as governing validators. Some of them include BLRD, DaooRadar, and AlphaLab Capital. Other validators joining the network include FirstStudio, SuraGaming, BigYak Axie Club, and DBS DAO.
The addition of new validators means the heightened security levels of the network and the different games built on the chain.
Conclusion
The Ronin Network is a highly capable scaling solution for gaming and has shown just how effective it is at handling massive amounts of transactions. Ronin’s development has given rise to a new era for Axie Infinity and the GameFi community as a whole. Its recent security issues pose a threat, but it is ready to bounce back and keep pushing forward.
Take action on RON
Check out the RON price today and begin trading your favorite currencies.
Towards Secure Liquidity Bridges
In my previous article I discussed one of the applications for the hybrid-line-bus and the possible benefits derived from that, it was a fiat-related system. The reception was mostly negative, so in this article I will discuss an application directly related to cryptocurrencies, a problem which has affected many within the community, this problem is ; liquidity bridges.
Background
A liquidity bridge is a collection of web applications or network clients and smart contracts working together to enable the transfer of value between one blockchain network and another, [1]. You can think of it in simple terms as “coin goes in one direction, wrapped version comes out in the other direction”.
Various bridges work in different ways, we will be looking at (6) examples, the first is the Ronin bridge, I will describe the network functions as “A-Side” and “B-Side”.
Bridge #1 : Ronin
The Ronin bridge had smart contracts into which the user could deposit their tokens, a contract instance existed on both A-Side and B-Side, the user specifies a destination address on B-Side when sending from A-Side and after some time the bridge will send wrapped versions of the tokens on B-Side in a bulk transaction [2].
The web application in this case is the website front-end, this is what users interact with to push orders to the “governance” network on the Ronin network, though it is possible to interact with the network without first going through the front-end, this front-end is (surprisingly) stored on Vercel, a cloud hosting service [3].
The Ronin network, was and is a trust-based system, when users lock funds in smart contracts the network uses governance keys to lock or unlock funds, this implies that the contracts are multi-signature, a certain threshold of signatures is and was needed to unlock funds, which is how the system was exploited in 2022, a hacker managed to acquire a threshold of governance keys needed to unlock a contract and began draining them [4].
Since then, Sky Mavis, the creators and managers of this bridge have made some changes to the bridge, that is; increasing the number of governance keys and adding a “circuit breaker” which is a way to halt large transactions if an exploit occurs [5].
Now, you’re probably thinking; “this sounds unusually centralized and trust based”, well that’s because it is.
A similar exploit happened to Harmony’s Horizon Bridge[6] but in that situation the bridge smart contracts only required 2 signatures to approve transactions. Harmony thus far (19–02–23) has made no significant changes to the Horizon bridge protocol and has not fixed the exploit[7], instead they opted to reimburse users affected by dipping into the foundation’s treasury.
This is Bridge #2.
Bridge #3 : Nomad
The Nomad bridge is particularly significant to me since I used to use it. It took me several days to bridge funds over from Ethereum to EVMOS (sometime in 2022 before the exploit). That aside; The Nomad bridge is arguably more centralized than Ronin, but this centralization gives it the edge to move funds between more networks [8].
The Bridge has contracts on A-Side and B-side just like Ronin, but the difference is rather than a governance network they have a centralized computer that pushes instructions to the contracts and enforces signatures which need to be provided for the bridge to approve an action [9].
The problem then arises that the signature needed can be faked, this is not the same as calling a contract with a private key, it depends on a type of deterministic message which contracts can use to trustlessly verify actions. If someone can acquire a signature output from a prior message that is exactly the same as a new message then they can exploit the system, arguably the solution is to make the messages less likely to reoccur, but with hundreds of thousands of transactions passing through every day and the weight of each message adding cost to transactions, that solution might not be all that viable for creating an affordable bridge. So far (19–02–23) the Nomad bridge has not re-opened [10], instead, what they have opted for is using KYC to verify affected users and attempt to reimburse some of the lost funds.
A similar attack was on the Binance Smart Chain which saw a hacker using forged signatures to mint new tokens, how this works is; the bridge mints tokens for B-Side while burning tokens on A-Side, this helps to negate some of the issues of managing liquidity [11].
This system of minting and burning only works with wrapped tokens, which are just collateralized copies of an existing token on a different network.
However, the problem is the same with Nomad, due to the deterministic way smart contracts accept signatures it is possible to fake signatures if a duplicate or similar one already exists.
How this was mediated by Binance was to use executive power over the chain to halt it and freeze the attacker’s funds [12]. oh, the ironing.
This is bridge #4
Bridge #5 : Multi-Chain Anyswap
This one is very peculiar, so the exploit took place on the contract side [13].
Speaking generally; each time you use a contract to transact a particular token you are granting it permission to move a certain amount of tokens from your wallet, this can either be the amount you are transacting or an “infinite” amount for all future swaps [14]
A normal approval hack works by getting the user to approve another contract which in effect grants the hacker permission to move any token which has previously been approved or create new approvals all together, but this only works for case by case, if a token has not already been approved, the hacker contract will have to approve it via the user [15].
In the case of Multi-Chain Anyswap, what happened was that the hacker used a flaw in the contract which allowed anyone with the right signature to approve other tokens through the contract, this means the Anyswap contract (legitimate) approves the hacker’s contract (illegitimate), thereby granting them access to any tokens which have been previously approved.
So, in this case; the bridge network did not need to be exploited, the contract itself was vulnerable. How the Anyswap team addressed this was by changing the “R” signatures for the contract which allows a more varied set of signatures [16].
They also made modifications to the code; however, the contract is still owned by Anyswap which could be a future liability if the keys are compromised.
Bridge #6 : Kyber
This one is really short, so the Kyber team hosted their front-end on a server that got compromised and the attacker inserted a fake front-end that diverted users away from the actual site [17].
Reflecting on the Past
The problems with bridges are (3) fold, the first is their trust-based nature, bridges with trusted custodians exerting control over the bridge’s operations can have their keys hacked or they themselves be accomplice to the theft.
The second problem is smart contract determinism, blockchain smart contracts use deterministic signatures which can be faked, a bigger pool of signatures can used but there is a finite limit before a signature is reused and therefore puts the system in jeopardy. Determinism is the only way to give orders to a contract that is not owned by the person interacting with it or using a proxy of the owner keys [18][19].
The third problem with bridges is their pricing mechanism, let’s take a case study of WBTC for example, in order to create a wrapped version of a token the deployer must create a liquidity pool, this pool functions with constant-market algorithm, I’ve explained the problem with constant-market in my TeF article here[link]. But essentially, they need constant arbitrage trades aimed at correcting the price to ensure the peg is maintained, the “correct” trades are rewarded. WBTC’s temporary depeg was as a result of the liquidation of the biggest WBTC merchant; Alameda research [20].
The process of maintaining such a peg was very expensive, using this model requires that you happen to have millions at your disposal to;
A) Create A-Side and B-Side liquidity
B) Maintain price pegs
Without these funds it is not possible to create a bridge with the existing model.
Oracles
In conjuncture to this are the sources of the price, which are external price feeds maintained by oracles, these oracles attempt to be trustless but it is simply not possible to create a trustless price feed due to sites going down, malfunctioning, getting updated or simply being hacked/acting maliciously, this is known as oracle failure or exploit [21].
This is an issue specifically in how coins are priced, if exchanges used on-chain metrics rather than speculative bids that can be easily manipulated [22], then we wouldn’t need trust-based feeds.
Aside
Front-end attacks are a lesser form of attack and are easily mediated by hosting the front-end on a distributed and immutable network.
Proposing a new bridge system
Whew* that was long.
So, this system, called Pengv2g (yes, v2, not v3), uses the Hybrid-Line-Network as a means of moving liquidity between chains, (Specs on the Network are here, here are specs for PKI and finally here are specs for Transaction formats).
The network achieves bridging through (3) means;
* Token Burns
* Peer Trading
* Price Incentives
The bridge works as follows; no Blockchain smart contracts.
There will be (2) distinct bridging processes, the first will be called “No-burning”, and the second will be called “Yes-burning”.
A No-Burning end works for chains like Bitcoin or Litecoin or Dogecoin where there is no burn address, on Dogecoin and Litecoin there are no smart contracts, which make it extremely difficult to build a trustless bridge.
No-Burning allows that on the network end the user logs-in using PKI (details on PKI can be found here), the user initiates a trade, then sends the desired COIN amount to a network peer’s COIN address, the trader holds liquidity for the trade, what he’s doing is trading the main network COIN for the bridge network’s COIN equivalent.
The network verifies the transaction using the chain RPC, once the funds reach the trader. the system deducts the “wrapped” version amount from the trader into the network side address of the user.
This system presumes that tokens are first acquired by traders operating on the Burning side.
Yes-Burning
Yes-burning ends of the bridge mean that the user would first need to burn their tokens and present the hash, then complete a PKI verification, the burnt amount is then reflected in the network as “minted tokens”. The transaction hash is stored within the network for each user, the PKI output cannot be replicated by anyone other than the owner of the private key, likewise the hash of the burning transaction.
Users can then go about the process of becoming traders, a trader is someone who picks up trade offers placed by other users and either sends or awaits a transfer. To become a trader a user must run a node on the network, the public key associated with all known and active nodes are recognized as valid traders.
This end can only work on networks that have burn addresses, such as Ethereum, Avalanche, or Polygon. These addresses have no keys [23].
Yes-burning ends are the only way to on-board new users.
Once on-boarded, users can then swap into or out of the network wrapped token, these tokens are created as part of the network genesis and have a fixed supply based on how many exist on the actual blockchain.
So, let’s go over that again, no-burning side; you swap your main-net COIN for Peng versions using a peer trade, or swap your Peng version for main-net COIN in the same fashion.
Yes-Burning; you swap your main-net COIN for Peng versions using burnt transaction hashes, or swap your Peng version for main-net COIN using a peer trade.
To fully bridge from end-to-end, you swap your A-Side Token for a B-Side token inside the network, specifying the destination address on the other blockchain. And voila! you have bridged.
A few things to note
Price is handled using an external price feed, each token is stored as a copy on the network with the data necessary to verify transactions such as an RPC link, the price URI is equally stored in this way. New tokens are created using an “Arbiter Dependent” IDA (Irreplicable Digital asset), there will be 20,000 Arbiters, and each will be single-use only, meaning there can only ever be 20,000 tokens created to each instance of the bridge. Fake tokens will have to be filtered through some third party means or just judging authenticity based on volume (which will be indicated). This makes the bridge fully trustless with no point of weakness.
An advantage of such bridges is that they require zero liquidity to start — I repeat — ZERO liquidity, that’s $0.00. All liquidity is handled through trade peers, there are no pools that need price pegging.
Regular transactions cost the same as on the main blockchain (this is an arbitrary fee that gets sent to the node processing the transaction).
Traders can automate their system using bots, which results in near instant swaps.
Another advantage is that liquidity cannot be drained from a central smart contract or vault, all liquidity is in the control of traders with no need for approvals or even wallet connect.
The tokens on the Peng side are secured by the Hybrid-Line-Bus, which doesn’t need to follow the same rules as a blockchain while being completely immutable, its similar to distributed computing but optimized for transactions and speed.
Price incentives
In order to keep the bridge lucrative, there will need to be an incentive structure, this is similar to the one used in v3f.
The incentive structure works as follows; nodes receive a bonus upon each trade, this bonus is in the bridge token known as “Toll Tallies” or “TT”, the value is enforced directly by the network at exactly $0.25.
The amount distributed is 5x whatever the main-net transaction fee was for the transaction, so if the transaction cost 0.57DOGE ($0.05) (20–02–23), then the node gets 1TT($0.25). The TT is minted each time a transaction is performed.
If a bridge end is built on a high cost chain and the transaction costs apx $5, then the node will receive 100TT ($25) for the transaction.
Countering Inflation
Now, clearly there’s a problem here, this would lead to inflation regardless of the enforced pricing, to control differences in “market price” vs “fixed price”, the system will use liquidity adjustments of either asset slot for the bridge.
To clarify; TT is held in separate accounts which make up a fixed swap pool, but each time TT is minted there becomes more tokens in circulating supply.
The “market price” comes from comparing the amount of tokens in each pool, i.e. if you have 1000DOGE and 1000TT then the two would have equal price, value is derived from the real asset not from TT. In the above scenario there is too much DOGE in the pool, so more TT needs to be added, what the system does is it mints more TT into the TT slot, if there is too much TT; it permanently subtracts TT from the slot (i.e. burns it), It only makes corrections like this when the market price varies from fixed price by more than 10%.
The system will start out with an arbitrary number of Bridge DOGE tokens and Bridge TT tokens which will be enough to maintain the “market price” for a long time.
Recap
So going over that again; nodes get rewarded in transaction fees, nodes are eligible to become traders and receive additional rewards for each trade, the reward is in Toll Tallies, whose price is stabilized by the network.
How does this compare to other similar systems
So what I’ve just described is not a “bridge” in the conventional sense, but has some similarities with a “decentralized” exchange, a similar exchange setup that has been around for years is Shapeshift [24].
So how is Peng different from Shapeshift?
1. Shapeshift pairs users with institutional trade partners who can be held accountable but also use their own rates, ordinary users do not have the ability to become trade partners. This is because Shapeshift’s “partners” work by directly sending Crypto to Crypto, whereas Peng uses wrapped coins that can be controlled by the network, meaning a trader cannot choose to withhold funds after the *correct payment has been made.
2. Shapeshift controls the servers, [25]. On Peng, NO ONE controls the servers, it is decentralized on a protocol level.
3. Shapeshift is a registered company, meaning they have to obey laws and regulations, previously Shapeshift required KYC [26] but how they got around this is by aggregating other decentralized exchanges, which kind of begs the question; why use Sideshift in the first place?
Regardless, you can’t do this as a financial service provider, you legally must ensure that if you are involved with brokering a financial service that you are preventing money laundering [27]. Eventually regulators will notice. As much as I would love to keep in line with regulations, I just can’t, okay?
4. Sideshift uses a “Fox” token to reward trade partners, making all trades free in effect [28], but this depends on two suppositions; A. the Fox token will continue generating revenue to cover the amount minted, B. Shapeshift’s server expenses and staff expenses won’t contribute too much into the Fox Token’s decline. The Fox token is an ERC-20 [29], using constant market algorithm for pricing, I discuss the issues with that in my TeF article here. The more tokens are minted; the greater the liquidity deficit, this only becomes apparent when a trader sells, but essentially, the more of it that exists; the less valuable it is.
How is this different from a DEX?
In this section we will be looking at (12) major automated DEXs; eXch, majestic bank, swapuz, Stealthex, Moneroj, Changenow, Fixed Float, Exolix, Letsexchange, Local Monero, Trocador.
To make things simple we will compare only 2 archetypes, which we shall call “anon” and “AML-Compliant”.
So, starting with AML-Compliant DEXs, using Sideshift as our archetype;
1. Sideshift is centralized, Sideshift has the power to block anyone from any jurisdiction from using their service [30] if they believe a trade is malicious they can block it. They are also compliant with law enforcement. [31]
2. Sideshift can only make money through (2) means, first is their ERC-20 token called “XAI” [32] we’ve already discussed why this would be an issue. The other means is by receiving payments to list tokens [33]
For Non-AML compliant DEXs the issues are as follows;
1. Most of these depend on cloud hosting services which can exert pressure on them if needed, those that don’t depend on cloud hosting; like Moneroj are still centralized hosts who can control the exchange however way they want; or worse if they should get hacked.
2. Hosting these services costs money, and often the hosts need an incentive structure to enable them make profit, moneroj for example is dependent on donations [33], if these services add a premium to their trades, users will move elsewhere, so they have to keep the service free and find some other means of making profit.
Recap on DEXs
Now that we understand what’s in the market we can safely compare it with Peng, Peng is a decentralized network with no central host or authority, the network issues tokens as rewards and enforces prices through various mechanisms discussed, users can exchange wrapped tokens for their blockchain equivalent, traders make profit from minted TT whose value is arbitrarily controlled by the network through fixed rate swaps and pool reorganization, it does not function the same way as an ERC-20, meaning no real liquidity is needed.
But it is important to note a detail about cross-chain swap protocols (CCSPs), they often use a tactic of moving funds between one another as “trade partners”, this allows one to circumvent laws (temporarily). The liquidity between these CCSPs is constantly moving around a small group of individuals and liquidity providers, you don’t even know how much they truly have, whether they can be arrested or who is transacting, but with Peng; everything is out in the open and more people are able to get into the market and participate. This makes the system more robust and fault proof.
As for legality, users will have the option to associate their public key to a name and short description.
In the description field they can append their proof of humanity details [34], this is optional and handled externally. So for a trader to be AML compliant they can use these means and only accept trade offers from others who have completed proof of humanity. Anon traders are free to ignore this, but all trades are public, if law enforcement can trace back your transactions you’ll have to answer to them, this feature just lets you cover your bases and be accountable. Which in itself is the bare minimum for AML compliance.
Notes on IPFS
There are simple recommendations for using IPFS when self-hosting, the first is the host peers need to be private and invite only, this is because IPFS by default is public, meaning all details stored; including the private keys used by the webapp can be known by the hosts. If one of the peers get compromised then you wind up with lost funds.
An example of a CCSP getting hacked is Rubic [35] which saw one of their admins get infected with a virus and lose all RBC and BRBC held inside his wallet.
Conclusion
Bridges are an essential part of a cross-chain world, they allow funds to be moved from one chain to another, however, their security is often brought into question and have been on occasion hacked and or exploited. CCSPs are an alternative to this but are extremely centralized.
The Peng Network offers a secure way to bridge funds between networks and even bridge from networks that were previously difficult to bridge from.
How to Use Ronin Bridge to Withdraw & Deposit to Ronin Network
Axie Infinity is pretty unique. You can’t play the game with tokens outside the ecosystem of the Ronin network. This also means that you need to have a wallet that supports Ronin, and that’s, at this moment, only the Ronin wallet.
To get your tokens in there, you must bridge them. Cross-chain bridge can help you take advantage of multiple networks by taking a token on one network and swapping it for the same token on another network. For instance, Ethereum on the Ethereum network for Wrapped Ethereum on the Ronin chain. And that’s exactly what you need to do to buy your first Axies.
And for all this, we’ll use Ronin Bridge.
In this guide, we’ll take a deep look at how to use Ronin Bridge. After all, effective use of this cross-chain bridge is needed for every aspect of the game.
What do you Need to Use Ronin Bridge
In all use cases, you’ll need to have two wallets.
You must have the Ronin Wallet installed. Although some exchanges offer the Ronin network as a route to withdraw and deposit tokens, Ronin Bridge doesn’t allow to use any other wallet than its own for this.
The second wallet has to have an Ethereum network. That’s pretty much every wallet on the market. So it doesn’t matter whether you are withdrawing to your non-custodial MetaMask wallet or you want to withdraw directly to your exchange and cash out.
If you wish to see how you can withdraw directly to an exchange and from there to your bank account, check out our guide on How to Cash Out SLP & AXS.
But that’s when cashing out. When you are depositing to the Ronin network (= bridging from ETH to Ronin), the app doesn’t give you any other option than to use the MetaMask wallet.
Let’s summarize this section:
How to use Ronin Bridge to Make a Deposit
Let’s first take a look at how to make a transfer from the Ethereum network to Ronin.
To get started, download, install, and configure both Ronin Wallet and MetaMask. You can get both wallets from the web store of your browser. When creating a wallet, don’t forget to properly write down your seed phrase! As a final step in the preparation phase, you’ll need to fund your MetaMask wallet.