After carefully reviewing each reply, I have a few points to make:
1. Regarding the previously mentioned Forcebridge, which has since been shut down, it once had a huge amount of traffic. Was this traffic generated because of the bridge itself, or because the application came first? My understanding is that the bridge gained value because of the application; otherwise, according to this logic, Forcebridge should have brought more continuous traffic to CKB, rather than gradually declining until its closure.
2. Whether CKB’s assets can bring value to other chains is very limited in my understanding. The community’s ecosystem relies on consensus, and integrating into other ecosystems has neither successful precedents nor is it more dependent on shared values.
3. Being technically decentralized and actually achieving decentralization are two different concepts. Is it possible that Rosen Bridge will remain centralized in the long term? Because there’s no way to find different roles to achieve decentralized operation, this point doesn’t seem to be a basis for superiority over other cross-chain bridges at present.
4. I don’t know much about the Ergo project. What is the feasibility of developing applications or ecosystems with CKB? It seems to be a rather abandoned project（The largest trading venue only had a 24-hour trading volume of $20,000.）, and its implementation would offer very limited help to the CKB ecosystem.
In conclusion, this project seems to be just a low-priority experiment. It would be better to think about how to implement CKB applications first, and then consider the necessity of introducing various bridges.
The blockchain itself is an infrastructure designed to protect asset security. I don’t know who invented this thing called a “bridge,” but it hands over the control of assets to a “bridge” that has a lower level of security,this in itself is highly unreasonable.When ForceBridge was shut down, the official team specifically mentioned that in the future, CKB would move toward a “bridge-less” approach. Every bridge boasts about how secure it is. Yes, before they get attacked and assets are lost, they all “look very secure.” But once hackers strike or there’s internal theft, the bridge itself is a flawed design.Blockchains do not need decentralized bridges. In my opinion, the best “bridge” is actually a centralized exchange (they require KYC, so accountability is possible). They can use legal accountability mechanisms to recover stolen assets. But with so-called decentralized bridges on blockchains, if assets are stolen, who takes responsibility?Moreover, the security of Rosen Bridge seems to depend on Ergo, and Ergo currently appears to be dying. There are also the so-called Watchers and Guards—in my view, they are just a simple message sending and confirmation mechanism. Is this mechanism really innovative? Does it make it very secure? Once the bridge is attacked, CKB’s price will also be dragged down and affected.
Bridges are meant to inject new assets and new use cases into an ecosystem. At present, it is clearly not the right time for either side to build such a bridge. CKB needs to create new forms of innovation based on its own characteristics, rather than focusing too much energy on tools and peripheral matters like bridges.
Some time ago, Base built a bridge to Solana, which sparked public disputes between the founders of both sides, yet the actual results were far from ideal. Therefore, I am currently opposed to building this bridge with official support from CKB.
DAO funding and resources should be more focused on innovative applications that leverage CKB’s unique characteristics and on the expansion of CKB Layer 2 solutions.
Thank you for your response. I don’t find the reasoning convincing. Like if you approached Hyperliquid or others and said, “hey CKB has developed A, B, and C; you can use all this great technology for free and save a lot of work—just invest $65k and assign three developers to integrate it,” I doubt those proposals would succeed.
What makes matters worse is that the proposal’s actual cost will exceed $65,000, as audit cost, RSN staking cost, and maintenance cost after the first year are unclear.
I see Rosen Bridge as the first step towards future efforts in DeFi. Our DeFi ecosystem failed to reach critical mass with Yokai Swap, but that does not mean that future efforts should be abandoned. CKB still remains a natural fit for DeFi because of its inherent efficiency and tokenomics. Of course, bridge connections do not miraculously lead to thriving DeFi. There is still a lot of work to be done, but I see ignoring this use case as a mistake.
It is also the first step towards meaningful collaboration with other UTXO-based blockchains, which could take many forms, including DeFi and NFTs. Current discussions generally revolve around AI, not as an end destination, but as a means to facilitate collaboration efforts.
Bridges, channels, and isomorphic bindings all have overlap in what they accomplish, but with different trade-offs. Some use cases may converge on a single technology, while others may diverge. It is not possible to predict whether one will eventually take the majority share in a particular area, nor can we predict the timeline in which this will occur.
My concern is not about predicting which of these will be dominant ten years from now. It could be one of them, it could be none of them, or perhaps they will forever co-exist. There are undeniable benefits to what Rosen Bridge can offer us right now and for the foreseeable future, and I do not want our ecosystem to be excluded from opportunities because we do not have basic infrastructure.
Bridges have both benefits and drawbacks. If there was another option that had all of the benefits with none of the drawbacks, of course I would choose that route. However, there is no such solution today. There are three main technologies for value exchange, bridges, channels, and isomorphic bindings. Each has their own tradeoffs, and all of them will continue to be used for the foreseeable future.
You and I would both like to see more innovative applications and solutions that utilize CKB. I would rather be working on those than bridges. But without proper infrastructure the liklihood of any successful effort becomes much lower.
I will ask the team if they have numbers they can provide.
No, and I don’t believe there is any model that would give any reliable number.
Based on your line of questioning, it looks to me like you are trying to gauge whether the bridge’s current users will translate into CKB users. I don’t believe it will, regardless of whether the number is big or small. Even if the bridge had a lot of users between two large connected chains, there is no reason they would start using CKB once connected.
There have to be applications to use before traffic increases. This has been pointed out by several others, and the disagreement is about which needs to come first. I strongly believe the bridge needs to come before there can be an expectation of meaningful application development.
The traffic was almost entirely because of applications, specifically the launch of Yokai Swap.
The number of assets on CKB with value is low (excluding CKB itself). You’re correct in that transferring these assets to other chains is also of very limited value in turn. Integration of a bridge does little on its own because it is primarily a pathway for value transfer.
Rosen Bridge is already one of the most decentralized bridges available, and they continue to make strides for further innovation in governance. If the entire Rosen Bridge core team were to perish in a plane crash, it would be a very serious blow to the project. However, it is already decentralized to a point that recovery and reinstatement of a new development team is entirely possible.
Ergo is a blockchain with the closest similarity to CKB in both technology and values. They are part of the UTXO Alliance, and many think of them as Cardano’s little brother since they were founded by many of the same team and community, and they are not going to disappear. Both our communities have openly stated that collaboration is desired.
Cardano has generally viewed as the more interesting opportunity to connect with. This is why we had two previous development teams try to build a Cardano bridge; both attempts failed due to development challenges. Rosen Bridge has already successfully navigated the technical challenges that other teams failed to overcome, and will provide us with the same functionality and liquidity pathway to Cardano.
I cannot find the words to describe how much I completely disagree with this conclusion. This is not an experiment. This is the single most practical solution that has ever been presented. Infrastructure needs to come before applications, or the applications will have too much friction to survive.
The biggest hacks in history occurred on centralized exchanges.
Watchers and Guards—in my view, they are just a simple message sending and confirmation mechanism. Is this mechanism really innovative? Does it make it very secure?
In the world of bridges, yes, this is innovative. The split responsibility and dual implementation reduces chances of any single implementation flaw resulting in catastrophe.
Once the bridge is attacked, CKB’s price will also be dragged down and affected.
You’re prophesying a catastrophe while ignoring the current reality. We need application development, and we need infrastructure to make that happen.
I support it, not only based on the technical details explained, but also for a very simple reason: we are lacking key and basic infra, and this is one of them. I see some mentions regarding focusing in other aspects, but after being here a few months, the main deterrent for new partnerships and to onboard projects to Nervos, has been the lack of precisely this very infra. The bridge itself isn’t going to solve the user problem that we have, but it’s an important step towards an ecosystem that feels legitimate and trustable.
My only feedback to the proposal, is to embed, in one way or another, a tracking system for user activity, only for metrics, or to create something like a dune dashboard that can be updated regardless of who works in the project. Also in Milestones one, to be a bit more concise in what the “documented implementation plan” deliverables would content or have (for example, the potential audit cost research, etc). And finally I’d add that the milestones should be attached to a public report to the community.
Going back to the feedback that was given by other community members, I have to say that I trust above all the members of the team, and this is the kind of work that’s not necessary the most exciting, but it’s needed and we gotta start somewhere, and this feel a great spot to start building a better ecosystem.
“CKB will be great once everything is ready (RGB++, Fiber, etc.).”
Answer: That’s true. But without some intermediate infrastructure, there’s no realistic way for users or builders to stay engaged until those pieces are fully mature.
Another question that often comes up :
“What does this bridge actually bring on its own ? How many users does it have today ?”
Answer : A bridge by itself doesn’t create users or activity. Its role is not to generate demand, but to remove friction for users and liquidity that already exist elsewhere.
A related concern :
“If users come to CKB through this bridge, what can they do today? Can we keep them ?”
Answer: This is the right concern. A bridge only makes sense if it is paired with ongoing efforts to grow native applications and primitives. Without that, it becomes just a temporary passage, not a destination.
So what is the intended role of a bridge here ? Not a replacement for CKB’s long-term vision, but a transitional tool that helps reduce isolation while the native stack continues to mature.
Closing thought :
From a broader ecosystem perspective, infrastructure and applications are not sequential, they evolve together.
Bridges should remain limited, complementary, and aligned with CKB’s core strengths, so that when stronger native use cases emerge, friction is already minimized instead of becoming the bottleneck.
Aside from the amount of CKB being spent for the bridge, there’s no reason not to integrate the bridge in advance of it being needed, it doesn’t have to be one thing or the other.
The only downside I see is that the current price of CKB means that we are having to spend a hell of a lot more CKB than we would if the price was 1 or 2 cents, so if that’s your argument then I totally agree.
But I think it’s extremely important right now that we just keep things rolling, because if we fall into the trap of not doing anything because the timings not perfect, then we could be waiting forever.
Yeah, to be honest, I don’t think anything will ‘happen’.
I’ve often seen communities of other chains have very high hopes that when a bridge is built, then all of a sudden there will be masses of people and money just flowing in.
Obviously they are always let down, because like you are getting at, the bridge is nearly useless unless there’s actually a reason for the people and money to come.
I think we need to be realistic here and understand that even after the bridge is built it will be almost unused until the time comes that we also have an app that encourages people to come.
But it’s better to be prepared in advance than having to wait 6 months or so for something that ‘could’ be very helpful at the time.
That’s true. But without some intermediate infrastructure, there’s no realistic way for users or builders to stay engaged until those pieces are fully mature.