Abstract

This paper presents Akamon α, a native bridge between Cardano and Polygon. The objective is to leverage both chains’ efficient infrastructure to bridge native assets between them. Akamon aims to be a community- driven bridge open for everyone, emphasizing decentralization and trust-less custody. Nevertheless, we have to stay centralized in the first testnet launch and semi-decentralized in the upcoming launches towards the end of 2022. The goal is to make iterative improvements to collect experiences along the way. For instance, an early centralized testnet brings us practical UX, infrastructure, and operations foundations for us to focus on decentralization later on. We will propose our road to decentralization in an Akamon β paper to be released end of May. A β testnet launch will follow suit on June 5th 2022.

Conclusion

This α paper introduces all the components one may need to build a bridge between Cardano and Polygon. The design is intentionally centralized first to build a foundation for UX, infrastructure, and operations. Decentralization works have been done in parallel and will be introduced in a β paper at the end of May 2022. Blockchain interoperability is a relatively new field so much more innovation is still awaiting. We expect to improve many contract designs with the upcoming Cardano hard fork. Off-chain infrastructure and tooling on all ecosystems can only get better with time as well.