Hyperlane is an open source framework that enables blockchains to communicate with one another. But why do blockchains need to communicate in the first place? How does that all work? And what makes Hyperlane special?
From Single-Player → Multiplayer
Remember the early days of single-player gaming, when experiences were isolated? Video games were self-contained worlds, limited to the player and their device. This would eventually change with the arrival of multiplayer gaming, which transformed those solitary experiences into ones that could be shared with friends across different devices.
The Rise of Cross-Platform Gaming
But even then, players were often limited to their platforms. Someone on Playstation couldn’t easily play with someone on Xbox, let alone PC. This would change with the rise of cross-platform gaming, otherwise known as cross-play.
Nowadays, viral games like Fortnite and Minecraft bring users together from any device. More and more games are following this trend, and cross-platform gaming has become a critical part of helping make gaming the $200 billion industry it is today.
But what does this all have to do with blockchains though?
Why Connect Blockchains?
History doesn’t repeat itself but it often rhymes. Just like everyone’s favorite gaming consoles used to be, blockchains today are isolated environments. The same way players on Playstation can’t speak to or play with other players on Xbox or PC by default, users and applications on different blockchains also can’t easily communicate or interact with one another.
With over $100b in value dispersed across over 300 blockchains today, blockchains have become key economic hubs, providing powerful network effects for applications built on top of them. In isolation, however, their potential is still greatly limited.
Why Build Many Chains?
Just as video game servers can only support a limited number of players at a time before performance starts to degrade, blockchains are restricted by how much activity they can handle at a time.
One way to accommodate this is by growing the number of chains available to host applications and user activity. However, not all chains are created equally. Just as a Playstation and an Xbox have their own architectures and operating systems, chains like Ethereum and Solana are also built on different environments — called virtual machines, or VMs for short.
It’s become evident that enabling seamless, secure communication even across different VMs, is just as important for blockchains as unlocking cross-platform, multiplayer mode was for gaming.
How do go from the Pacman arcade era to Fortnite-scale multiplayer for blockchains? The best way to do this at scale is with a permissionless, open framework.
Enter Hyperlane.
Introducing Hyperlane
Hyperlane is an open source framework for connecting blockchains to one another. It empowers developers to connect any chain, and to build applications that can easily and securely communicate across multiple chains and multiple VMs.
In other words, Hyperlane brings cross-platform, multiplayer gaming to the world of blockchains.
Why Hyperlane?
There are several core principles that define Hyperlane’s unique value proposition:
- Permissionless: Anyone can deploy Hyperlane anywhere today. There are no contractual agreements or lobbying required to connect to any chain Hyperlane supports.
- Modular: Hyperlane’s components are fully modular, allowing developers to easily customize and configure them to their unique preferences.
- Future-Proof: None of Hyperlane’s components are enshrined, meaning developers can easily swap out existing components for new ones as they want to. This allows Hyperlane and anyone building on Hyperlane to be able to adapt to technological advancements in blockchains, such as interchain security.
Building on these principles allows Hyperlane to handle the growing demand and complexity of the multi-chain landscape over time.
How does this all work?
How Does Hyperlane Connect Chains?
Communicating information from one blockchain to another requires passing an interchain message. Hyperlane is made up of three key components — a messaging layer, a transport layer, and security layer.
- The messaging layer is made up of Mailboxes, which send and receive messages going between chains. Each chain Hyperlane supports has a Mailbox, which serves as a reference point for that specific chain.
- The transport layer is made up of a Relayer, which picks up messages from the original chain the message was sent from (the origin chain) and delivers it to the destination chain.
- The security layer is made up of Interchain Security Modules (ISMs). These modules are responsible for verifying that an incoming message was actually sent from the origin chain.
Putting this all together, here’s what it would look like for a user to send a message from chain A to chain B:
- The message is first passed to the Mailbox on chain A.
- Here, a set of agents called validators observe the message and confirm it with a signature.
- The Relayer then picks up the message and transports it to the Mailbox on chain B.
- An ISM verifies the message was actually sent on chain A.
- The Mailbox on chain B can now deliver the message to its recipient.
The Cross-Platform Multiplayer Endgame
Cross-platform multiplayer gaming transformed the gaming industry. Turning isolated gameplay into shared, immersive experiences has allowed for thriving communities and ecosystems to be built around games. Some of the most viral games today let users play across multiple different devices, and platform incompatibility is becoming less and less significant.
Hyperlane brings cross-platform multiplayer mode to blockchains, enabling developers to easily connect to any chain and focus on building applications instead of infrastructure. This isn’t just about unlocking multiplayer mode: it’s about unlocking seamless, cross-platform functionality, bringing users and applications across different ecosystems together.
Expansion.
More about Hyperlane
Hyperlane is the open interoperability framework. It empowers developers to connect anywhere onchain and build applications that can easily and securely communicate between multiple blockchains. Importantly, Hyperlane is fully open-source and always permissionless to build with.
