The Tangle Network is a Substrate-based blockchain that runs two major protocols developed by Webb:
The first is a threshold-ECDSA distributed key generation (DKG) and signing protocol underneath a quorum-based proposal voting system. This governance system facilitates threshold signature generation for arbitrary proposal data as a set of pallets that interact, operate, and maintain the DKG protocol’s lifecycle and improvement.
The second executes our zero-knowledge bridges or what we call the Anchor System in Substrate. We use the term ‘Anchor’ to describe individual endpoints on a bridge. The Anchor System in Substrate contains pallets for modifying on-chain merkle trees, pallets that leverage these trees for applications, and pallets that maintain bridges between anchors that live on other neighboring blockchains. The bridge governance system leverages ECDSA signatures to modify on-chain state of an anchor’s neighboring state.
Together, these two protocols allow us to build bridged applications across not only Substrate chains but also EVM chains, CosmWasm chains, and Ink! compatible chains. We are continuing to build out the private bridge protocol for each of these environments and will leverage the threshold-ECDSA protocol to connect instances of anchors in these different environments.