The First Version of Dante Protocol in Substrate Ink! Tech Stack — Granted by Web3 Foundation
We’re the Dante Network team, and we are so glad to announce the first step of the Dante Protocol in [Substrate Ink!](https://github.com/dantenetwork/protocol-stack-for-ink) has been finished. We really appreciate the help from [Web3 Foundation](https://web3.foundation/) and we are working to build a more common and secure infrastructure to help the Polkadot ecosystem interact with other ecosystems at the smart contract level.
In general, Dante Network is an Omniverse infrastructure of Web3 for collaboration among multiple ecosystems, just as an “Internet protocol stack” is for the current Internet. Dante Network builds a bi-direction connection for smart contracts deployed on heterogeneous public chains to cooperate with each other. The scientific problem we are solving is how to connect two trusted consensus spaces through a trustless off-chain environment without any assumption. Cryptographic commitments along with a multi-level gaming model are used to make all off-chain nodes face a prisoner’s dilemma, within which the best strategy for them is doing honest things.
We persist in building the Dante Protocol in an absolute open and decentralized way, based on which security of interaction between isolated heterogeneous consensus spaces can be guaranteed with high degree of certainty. Yes, security can be guaranteed with no doubt.
Work until now
We started building from some very basic points. We described the “Three Layers Architecture” of Dante Protocol, details can be found [here] (https://dantenetwork.medium.com/techtabloid-brief-introduction-of-dante-technical-stack-4ee9af40a079).
We really appreciate the help from W3F. Until now, we have completed the service presentation protocol layer, the basic security items in the SQoS layer, and the belief verification algorithms in the consensus layer.
With the help of current work, remote invocations can be made between smart contracts deployed on Polkadot Parachains and smart contracts/resources deployed on other ecosystems.
For “Ink!” tech stack, the source code of “Service Presentation Layer” could be found [here](https://github.com/dantenetwork/message-ink/tree/ink-2.0-alpha.3). We provide a “Message Payload” to make user-defined data structure to be easily understood between “Ink!” and other tech stack for smart contracts. That is, users can define their data structure freely without the consideration of the differences of the underlying encoding and decoding mechanisms in different tech stacks such as “Ink!”, “solidity-EVM”, “Rust-Near”, “Cadence-Flow”, “Sui-Move”, etc.
SQoS is very necessary for an infrastructure as the served applications may have very different demands of security according to their scenarios. The source code of basic items of SQoS implemented in “Ink!” could be found [here](https://github.com/dantenetwork/protocol-stack-for-ink/tree/feature-sqos). For instance, the item “verification threshold” is very simple, which decides the low limit of acceptance if inconsistency happens; And the item “authority context” maintenances the context cross the different consensus spaces, which might be quite useful when the callee on the target chain needs the sender information of the caller on the source chain; Besides, the item “error rollback” is very important when errors thrown during the remote invocation procedure. The items like “hidden & reveal” and “optimistic” are a little bit complex and the details can be found in the source code.
The belief verification mechanism is basic and very useful, which is composed with three core algorithms. An intuitive description can be found [here] (https://github.com/dantenetwork/protocol-stack-for-ink/tree/main/contracts/algorithm#router-selection). Simply speaking, the belief verification mechanism is a combination of proof of stake and proof of credibility, and the credibility is evaluated by the history work of the off-chain routers.
These are only basic but necessary points, and they comprise the MPV of Dante protocol, based on which we launched our first Testnet. The detailed deployment information can be found at [Testnet](https://github.com/dantenetwork/testnet).
In addition, developers are free to try the Dante Protocol as we provide [SDKs](https://github.com/dantenetwork/On-Chain-SDK) for easier development of omniverse-dApps.
The reason we choose Polkadot ecosystem
Actually, Dante has a philosophy that is very much in line with Polkadot that both of us are aiming to build a decentralized collaboration future. We think Polkadot provides a really security-complete solution through its Parachain architecture. As a complement to Polkadot, Dante provides solutions for heterogeneous consensus spaces. Parachains are connected together through Polkadot, and they are connected to outside ecosystems through Dante Protocol. So Dante can extend the boundaries of the Polkadot ecosystem to interact with outside ecosystems like Ethereum and other EVM-based chains, Near, Flow, Sui-Move, etc.
Experience of Development with Substrate Ink!
During the process of building Dante, we found that both the engineering development aspect and the algorithm research were quite difficult.
As we persist in building Dante in an absolutely decentralized way, there needs to be some skilled algorithms and we need to consider many implementation details of many different technology stacks. It’s complex but really interesting. Fortunately, the difficulties became our motivation to move forward.
The smart contract of “Substrate Ink!” is a project that is still in development. We can build anything other tech stacks(like solidity-EVM) of smart contract support. The unique thing is that the smart contract in “Ink!” can interact with “Substrate Pallet” to complete some more flexible functions as the “Pallet” supports a chain level component. Actually, our team is developing an Omniverse swap protocol with “Substrate pallet” based on Dante, which might be an awesome improvement of current swap services.
Future work
We persist in developing the Dante Protocol in an absolutely decentralized way, so there might be still a long way to go.
First, we are building advanced features of Dante Protocol to achieve higher and more efficient security. A commitment verification mechanism based on cryptographic algorithms and a multi-layer gaming model will be built to construct a prisoner’s dilemma for off-chain routers, in which although everyone is free to join Dante Network, the best strategy for all the participants is to do honest things.
Besides, an Omniverse Token Protocol based on Dante Protocol is to be implemented. This kind of token can be accessed from all chains we support without any bridge. So we can help DOT to be Omniverse without any additional work, that is, if someone transfers some DOTs on Polkadot, the same ownership transfer will happen on all connected chains.
In addition, in the future, Dante Protocol will be implemented as a pallet for substrate, and everyone can integrate this pallet into their Parachains.
About Web3 Foundation
Learn more about Web3 Foundation by visiting their website, and stay up to date with the latest developments by following them on [Medium](https://medium.com/web3foundation) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/web3foundation).
Join Dante Community
Dante Website | Dante Twitter | Dante Telegram |
Dante GitHub | Dante Discord |
Contact us
Email: Nika@dantechain.com
