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Spanning Network
The Spanning Network is a powerful cross-chain API that enables developers to build applications on chains that best suit their technical needs. These multi-home applications will become the basis for the future of the web; check out our demos of a multichain ERC20 and ERC721 here.
Through the use of Ownership bridging, the Spanning Network can communicate state change requests from a user on their preferred network to an application on another network. This allows for Spanning to verify the authenticity of the request and to ensure that the request is valid.
How the Spanning Network Works
We rely on a series of Spanning Delegates to build the Spanning Network. Spanning Delegates are responsible for authenticating a sender, the sender's originating domain, and other header information before passing the authenticated information to the Spanning Network relayer, Blockchain OS (BOS).
BOS routes the message to the correct destination network and pays any associated gas fees to settle the transaction request.
The destination Spanning Delegate receives the verified transaction request and header information from BOS and executes the transaction. During the execution of the transaction the verified header information (like the original message sender's address) is served by the Spanning Delegate to the requested application. Once the transaction is complete the verified header information is destroyed.
Why Ownership Bridging?
Ownership bridging is superior to the traditional interoperability approach of asset bridging for a few reasons:
- No extra steps to using an application on another network. No intermediate transaction, no new wallets or accounts, no purchasing new gas tokens. Simply call the function of a contract on another chain via a Spanning Delegate and relax.
- Assets are held directly in owner's names. An owner can directly own an asset on another chain, not a derivative or wrapped version of it. This means there is no 3rd party custody agent that has to be trusted.
- Everyone gets access to the same code path, utility, and liquidity. Now that applications and assets can live on a single network, they are no longer subject to the fracturing in utility and liquidity that occurs when assets are wrapped or logic is copy/pasted to new places.