Hyperservice: Interoperability and programmability across heterogeneous blockchains

Zhuotao Liu, Yangxi Xiang, Jian Shi, Peng Gao, Haoyu Wang, Xusheng Xiao, Bihan Wen, Yih Chun Hu

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Blockchain interoperability, which allows state transitions across different blockchain networks, is critical functionality to facilitate major blockchain adoption. Existing interoperability protocols mostly focus on atomic token exchanges between blockchains. However, as blockchains have been upgraded from passive distributed ledgers into programmable state machines (thanks to smart contracts), the scope of blockchain interoperability goes beyond just token exchanges. In this paper, we present HyperService, the first platform that delivers interoperability and programmability across heterogeneous blockchains. HyperService is powered by two innovative designs: (i) a developer-facing programming framework that allows developers to build cross-chain applications in a unified programming model; and (ii) a secure blockchain-facing cryptography protocol that provably realizes those applications on blockchains. We implement a prototype of HyperService in approximately 35,000 lines of code to demonstrate its practicality. Our experiments show that (i) HyperService imposes reasonable latency, in order of seconds, on the end-to-end execution of cross-chain applications; (ii) the HyperService platform is scalable to continuously incorporate new large-scale production blockchains.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationCCS 2019 - Proceedings of the 2019 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery
Pages549-566
Number of pages18
ISBN (Electronic)9781450367479
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 6 2019
Event26th ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS 2019 - London, United Kingdom
Duration: Nov 11 2019Nov 15 2019

Publication series

NameProceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security
ISSN (Print)1543-7221

Conference

Conference26th ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security, CCS 2019
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityLondon
Period11/11/1911/15/19

Keywords

  • Blockchain Interoperability
  • Cross-chain dApps
  • Smart Contract

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • Computer Networks and Communications

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