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# System prepended metadata

title: ICP <> Ethereum integration thoughts - Aug 2023

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Initial thoughts about potential Ethereum <> ICP integration opportunities - meant as starting point for discussions!

- **ICP with (wrapped) assets** bridged from Eth L1 and Bitcoin
    - Canisters for high performant/cheap logic execution 
    - Smart contracts holding assets on source chain (e.g Bitcoin / Ethereum) and wrapped representation on network (e.g. ckBTC, ckETH or ckERC20xx - ckUSDC?!)
    - **Pro**: easy interaction with assets from other L1s, cheaper, faster logic execution
    - **Con**: 
        - **Increases risk for asset holders** (for principle) - e.g. tBTC limited usage on ETH
            - tBTC (after 2 years - less then 300 BTC) - https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/tbtc/
            - wBTC (162,000 BTC)- https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/wrapped-bitcoin/
            - **even wBTC & tBTC -> less than 1% of BTC is wrapped ** (after many years)
        - **DeFi yield vs. risk to lose principle** (coming from a more secure network BTC -> ETH -> ICP) often not worth it. DeFi yields high usually based on speculation/leverage, no magic way to make safe yield on BTC
        - **Complexity with L2s will explode - ckETH-Optimism; ckETH-Abitrum, ckETH-zkSync... + ERC20-xx on each of them, etc. ?**
    - **My current conclusion - for discussion** 
        - Define L2 strategy?!
        - Focus on **usecases that require lower risk for the assets**, but have benefits from cheap/fast movement - e.g. ordinals or maybe micropayments using USDC?
- **ICP as EVM sidechain** (with wrapped assets)
    - run EVM on a cheaper/faster network (e.g. running EVM rust on ICP subnet)
    - often with simple bridges to bring (wrapped) assets from other EVM/non-EVM networks 
    - Approach similar to many other L1s like Avalance, etc - popular and temp successful on 2021
    - **Pro**: reuse of existing Solidity code e.g. Uniswap or Gnosis Safe
    - **Con**: demand might be limited in 2023 given alternatives with EVM Rollups (optimistic and EVM) with security model & roadmap aligned to Ethereum L1 
    - **My current conclusion: **
        - Likely easy to implement - worth offering the option, if easy - interest from Eth community likely limited
        - Potentially interesting for ICP use cases to leverage battle tested solidty code (and community) e.g. Gnosis Safe for ICP use-cases? 
-  **ICP as 'co-processor** to **offload certain computation** to a cheaper/faster system
    - Risc0, Axiom, HyperOracle (?!) etc. - are building 'zk-processors' for Ethereum (often zkVMs)
        - Use a smart contract as interface for developers, place request via smart contract
        - Results computed 'offchain' e.g. by zkVM, and result posted back to the chain (with zkProof)
        - Bonsai example - from Riso0
            - ![](https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/firescript-577a2.appspot.com/o/imgs%2Fapp%2Ffidenexum%2FoG19fxGQFI.png?alt=media&token=9b871334-01fd-4491-a2d4-265b12e5e15c)
    - Instead of ZK proofs -> ICP as co-processor 
        - **Pro**
            - faster? 
            - it allows more complex computation
            - more data heavy use-cases (e.g. like TheGraph)? 
            - use-cases with external data source (e.g. risk score based on on & offchain metrics)?
        - **Con**: The trust would be to the consensus of the subnet (?!)
    - **My current conclusion** 
        - likely very interesting for certain use-cases?!
        - more discussion required, and explore use-cases in more detail
        - Question: how hard would build a prototype for this? 
- **ICP as to host interfaces for Eth aka programmable wallet**
    - Today: 
        - Mainly Mobile or Browser extension
        - Bad UX - seed phrases, not usable on other devices, etc. 
    - Upcoming: 
        - **Increased complexity in particular with many L2/L3s**
        - Account abstraction / smart contract wallet trend on Ethereum 
            - Easier interaction without holding assets 
            - Allows other proofs to unlock transactions?
        - Intent signatures instead of transactions big topic in Eth space too, requires different/new wallet
        - --> needs & **attention in Ethereum for better wallet solutions** 
    - **Opportunity - hosted wallet on ICP**
        - For 'daily' use-cases (not whales, or large DeFi users)
            - Secure UI & great/safe enduser UX (e.g. passkey)
        - Cross-L2/L1 (MPC) wallet
            - Combined with key rotation / recovery methods & multiSig
            - ICP as programmable/flexible MPC wallet with UI in the same 'security zone'
            - Question: could Rabby or MM wallet run on ICP? (https://github.com/RabbyHub/Rabby)
        - In combination with account abstraction (EIP 4337) / smart contract wallets
            - possibility for faster, less costly signature options?
            - Use ICP wallet one signer key for Gnosis SAFE wallet (to hold larger assets on Eth)
                - Gnosis e.g. can set daily allowances of e.g. 100 USDC per day per key
        - Data/Storage
            - Store details, configurations, history, etc in a private way for users
            - Combine with data for identity use-cases?
    - **My current conclusion**
        - Most interesting space for now since it could actually solve challenges the Ethereum ecosystem cares about
            - Great opportunity to demonstrate the benefits and power of ICP
        - ICP needs to establish itself as secure/trustworthy enough to Eth community
            - thats why simple/low risk use-cases are likely the best way to get people comfortable (small payments, gaming, etc) 
            - -> much easier than hold my assets on ICP aka  'DeFi on ICP' ?!
        - Question: how to best integrate L2s? 
        - Question: could a MM Snaps model be possible in the IC ecosystem?
