Tokenized Interchain Accounts

Tokenized Interchain Accounts are a new paradigm that tokenizes account ownership across multiple chains using IBC.

Problem Overview

Infrastructure Layer

This journey began with an ambitious goal: to develop a CosmWasm implementation of ICS-27. I achieved this, creating a robust infrastructure that allows contracts on Injective to manage accounts on other chains, bypassing the need for deploying contracts on counterparty chain. This infrastructure overcomes the limitations of the existing Go implementation of ICS-27 in CosmWasm environments that make it unusable, unlocking new potential in cross-chain DeFi, such as:

• Managing accounts on chains lacking native smart contract support.
• Deploy applications to other chains that might not even support smart contracts.
• Pioneering in Interchain SocialFi and DAO initiatives.

Application Layer

At the application forefront, we introduce an NFT model that tokenizes multi-chain account ownership. This concept ushers in a new era for DeFi, allowing for accounts themselves to be a part of the DeFi ecosystem. Enabling use cases such as:

• Trading accounts on NFT marketplaces.
• Using accounts (and their delegations) as collateral in lending protocols.
• Airdrop auctions where users can sell their accounts to the highest bidder (if the account is eligible for an airdrop).

Design Process

The project comprises three critical components:

• CosmWasm Interchain Account (ICA) Controller Contract
• NFT-ICA Contracts
• NFT-ICA UI

The project's development was a meticulous process, beginning pre-hackathon with a basic cw-ica-controller prototype. The hackathon's announcement spurred its evolution into a mature, production-ready infrastructure component, demanding rigorous testing and refinement over two months. This phase garnered attention from various blockchain entities. An audit of cw-ica-controller would be the next step if this project is selected as a winner.

The final month was dedicated to showcasing the infrastructure's capabilities through the cw-nft-ica and nft-ica-ui, demonstrating the practical applications of our innovations via a novel paradigm of NFTs that tokenizes account ownership across multiple chains.

Demo Video

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Value Proposition for Injective Chain

1. Robust infrastructure: Post-audit, our cw-ica-controller can be a cornerstone for Injective. Historically, ICA has only been accessible to Go developers building their own chains (such as Stride, and Quicksilver), other attempts to implement ICA in CosmWasm through chain specific bindings (such as in Neutron) have been unsuccessful due to users not wanting to be vendor locked. Our implementation opens the door to CosmWasm developers, enabling them to create and control accounts on other chains. This infrastructure can be used in any way builders utilize including the benefits listed here:

• Cross-chain DAO functionalities.
• Interchain lending mechanisms.
• Multi-chain passive income streams.
• Enhanced dApp interactions and event-based cross-chain actions.
• User tailored cross-chain DeFi offerings.

1. NFT Innovation: cw-nft-ica is a proof of concept for a new paradigm that tokenizes account ownership across multiple chains. This new paradigm should be very attractive to the NFT and DeFi communities and should bring attention to Injective and differentiate the NFT marketplaces on Injective. This project can foster:

• A vibrant marketplace for trading blockchain accounts.
• Airdrop auctions.
• Utilization of accounts as collateral.
• Cross-chain SocialFi and tailored DeFi solutions.