Omnity
Omnity

Amid the hype of US politics, July's Bitcoin Nashville drew enormous attention. But beyond the lively Nashville Music City Center, at the iconic Johnny Cash Bar & BBQ, builders from both the Bitcoin and Dfinity ecosystems discussed how Dfinity's Chain Fusion + anything has the potential to solve problems if you care about security, scalability, and trustlessness in your Bitcoin build, and Louis Liu, founder of Omnity, was no exception.

In the blockchain world, the challenges of cross-chain interoperability—particularly involving Bitcoin—have long been formidable. Yet, the integration of Omnity's innovative technology with the Internet Computer's Chain Fusion stack, supercharged by the recent Deuterium Milestone, is ushering in a new era of Bitcoin interoperability.

At Bitcoin Nashville, Liu explained that, for Omnity, Chain Fusion had the missing pieces to a puzzle they'd been challenging for years—a trustless, invisible cross-chain hub. While the Omnity development team had built interoperability solutions on many chains over the last five years, they'd managed to time the launch of the Omnity Interoperability Hub on the Internet Computer in concert with the official release of the Runes protocol at the Bitcoin Halving in April 2024.

Now, with the recent release of ICP's Deuterum Milestone supporting Taproot assets and Threshold Schnorr signatures, Omnity is already prepared to support the cross-chain transfer of Ordinals, BRC-20 and other Bitcoin metaprotocols to any chain connected to the Omnity Hub trustlessly...and without gas fees to users.

For Omnity, the implications of this accomplishment are huge.

Over the years, the multilevered challenge of scaling Bitcoin without compromising its inherent characteristics has continued to drive the development of many innovative projects, all contributing to our collective, open-source, voluminous history of head-banging against the blockchain trilemma. Every solution balances trade-offs between decentralization, security, and scalability. – Omnity Network, Hackernoon.

What is Chain Fusion?

The Internet Computer's chain-key cryptography allows its powerful smart contracts to write and sign transactions on disparate blockchains. This means that developers can create smart contracts that interact directly with the Bitcoin mainnet and testnet networks, in effect maintaining a Bitcoin subnet that is inextricable from the Bitcoin network with a 100% end-to-end tech stack.

Because of Chain Fusion's Bitcoin Subnet, people often ask Liu what Omnity brings to ICP's Chain Fusion. At Bitcoin Nashville, Liu addressed this question directly upon opening his presentation entitled The Spear Tip of Chain Fusion:

"We are part of the Chain Fusion. We don't want to play the "nice-to-have" part. We want to play the essential part, the most aggressive part, to gain adoption to Chain Fusion. – Louis Liu, Founder, Omnity Network, Bitcoin Nashville

Omnity's long journey to trustless interoperability

Omnity Network had long been working on Cosmos' Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC) to adapt light clients for various non-Cosmos chains. While he still considers IBC "the gold standard" for interoperability, Liu explains the difficulty of adapting non-Cosmos light clients within IBC and how some aspects of the Internet Computer's Chain Fusion allowed Omnity to finally complete a fully trustless, on-chain hub. Since the launch of its Omnity Hub in April, Omnity has rapidly expanded its light client technology, rapidly connecting Bitcoin Layer 2s and other chains and accumulating 1M TVL in just a few months.

ICP's Reverse Gas Model means that users don't pay gas fees. "You can zoom Bitcoin Meta Protocols around DeFi, Dapps, or wherever you want, and you won't even know ICP or Omnity is working behind the scenes," Liu says when discussing Chain Fusion's chain abstraction — the concept of internet users having such a smooth experience that they don't even know a blockchain is involved.

Seamless cross-chain minting, burning, and etching without Bitcoin gas fees

A revolutionary aspect of Omnity's integration with ICP's Chain Fusion stack is its ability to facilitate the cross-chain minting, burning, and etching of Bitcoin metaprotocols without the user incurring Bitcoin fees, as currently demonstrated on its Omnity Hub with Runes. Traditionally, these processes have been slow and hampered by the fees associated with Bitcoin network transactions.

Omnity's infrastructure, integrated with ICP's Chain Fusion, circumvents these issues, enabling more fluid and accessible interactions with Bitcoin metaprotocols and making these assets more practical for a wider range of applications.

This breakthrough also helps prevent congestion on the Bitcoin network, maintaining its efficiency and scalability even as cross-chain interactions increase. Omnity has already built an indexer, the Omnity Explorer, to support these Bitcoin metaprotocols along with Runes. According to Liu, it may be the world's first.

100% on-Chain and trustless: The new standard for Bitcoin interoperability

What sets Omnity apart is its commitment to ensuring that all operations are fully on-chain and trustless. By avoiding reliance on off-chain components, Omnity ensures that every transaction, from cross-chain transfers to asset minting and burning, is verifiable and secure on the blockchain. As Liu puts it, "Even if aliens abducted the Omnity team, users would still be able to redeem their Bitcoin assets back to the Bitcoin settlement chain."

The integration of Omnity's technology with ICP's Chain Fusion stack, especially in light of the Deuterium Milestone, represents a transformative leap forward for Bitcoin interoperability. By enabling seamless, 100% on-chain, trustless interactions for BRC-20 tokens, Ordinals, and Runes—without the need for Bitcoin gas fees—Omnity is breaking new ground and offering a glimpse into the future of the blockchain internet. As this technology continues to evolve, it promises to play a central role in the next wave of blockchain innovation, bringing secure, scalable, and efficient interoperability to the forefront of the industry.