Gravity

Basics

• Founded in: 2019
• Testnet: "Cosmos is running an incentivized testnet competition to battle test Gravity DEX" (15-4-2021)
• Mainnet release: "This release is planned for the end of 2020" (21-7-2020)
• Based in:
• A blockchain-agnostic cross-chain data oracles protocol.
• From their FAQ (1-6-2020):

"Gravity is a blockchain-agnostic protocol that handles communication of blockchain networks with each other (interchain) and with the outside world (through data oracles). It is focused around interchain communication, establishing a solid foundation for the creation of gateways and cross-chain applications and providing a solution to blockchain scalability challenges through the mechanism of sidechains."

History

• From their blog (21-7-2020):

"In 2019, an analysis of technology trends that pertain to the blockchain industry led researchers from the Waves ecosystem to conclude the following: in order to build products that are appealing and accessible to everyone, befitting the requirements for mass adoption, it is necessary to focus on data provision and interoperability. This triggered the team to pursue research that led to what is now the Gravity Protocol, the first blockchain-agnostic cross-chain communication and data oracles solution.

A few months later, a research paper about Gravity protocol was published. This work is a culmination of months of research and experimentation with various architectures of oracle networks using decentralized applications such as Neutrino, Lombardini and Waves Oracles."

Token

• Has no native token, uses the tokens of the projects integrated with instead.
• Graviton however does have a token, GTON (28-4-2021).

Tech

• Whitepaper can be found here.
• Code can be viewed here (18-8-2020).
• Built on: its own protocol
• Programming language used:

Transaction Details

• Capacity (TPS):
• Latency:

How it works

• From their FAQ (1-6-2020):

"A system smart contract, deployed in each of the supported blockchain networks, takes care of system interaction and deposit locking, registration of nodes and collection of Gravity node scores about each other. As a data provider, you can enter the network by locking a deposit for one year in any of the supported public host-chains in the native token of the selected blockchain and installing all necessary infrastructure on your servers (a node with extractors).

In the case of malicious behavior of your node (i.e. if the data from it diverges greatly from the aggregate values, or if the node stops receiving and processing data feeds from its peers), your peers can set their peer rating to zero, which quickly shuts the node down to protect the Gravity network. If at the moment of exit the reputation level is zero, the deposit gets locked for one year after exit, otherwise one year after the registration."

"As a node operator, how do I monetize the work of my node?

NEBULA-SC accumulates payments from users. All profits are distributed every week (on Mondays). Gravity smart contracts (SYSTEM-SC and NEBULA-SC), collect activity logs for each oracle in all host blockchains. At the moment of profit distribution, the percentage of funds that can be claimed by each of the Gravity nodes is calculated, where the share of rewards received by a single oracle is the product of its activity and reputation score normalized on the total amount of funds."

"The Pulse algorithm is a two-step procedure that encompasses the core internal mechanics of Gravity as a data service, as well as the external parts of on-chain data verification and delivery within one of the supported target blockchains. Pulse is a process that starts with a request to deliver data to a target blockchain and ends with a successful verification and delivery of data to subscribers (USER-SC)."

• From the Graviton announcement (28-4-2021):

"Gravity is a tokenless and blockchain agnostic protocol, meaning its economy is based on the nodes’ mining of the tokens of those projects that are integrated into the network.

There may be two types of revenue sources for Gravity nodes: 1. direct payment for the service in either the native token or any liquid token of an integrated blockchain, 2. Transactional fees, for instance fees for cross-chain transfers."

Scaling

• From their blog (9-2-2021):

"Optimistic Rollups are a layer-2 solution for Ethereum to improve scalability, represented by a parallel sidechain that supports smart contracts. Each rollup is an off-chain aggregation of transactions which reduces fees and congestion. Connecting Optimistic Rollups with Gravity would allow for a faster and less expensive Ethereum mainnet integration and an easier development cycle."

Interoperability

• From this blog (3-11-2020):

"The SuSy gateway protocol is used for cross-chain token swaps and operates on top of the Gravity protocol. Tokens will be accessible as wrapped tokens on chains that the Gravity protocol is integrated with."

• From their FAQ (1-6-2020):

"It is possible to implement cross-chain transfer of digital assets (tokens) with Gravity. Data provision between two blockchain networks is the key link for such applications, with the primary principle being: to lock tokens on the account in one blockchain (origin), report this event to another blockchain (destination), which will issue exactly the same number of tokens. In the case of an emergency situation where the release of the token has not occured, the mechanism for resolving the dispute is triggered, which sends a signal to unlock the token on the origin blockchain. There are multiple ways to implement such applications, for example, based on the transfer of a Merkle tree and information to the origin blockchain from the destination blockchain, and if the existing cryptography supports this, it is possible to validate the presence of any requested transaction in the destination (e.g., issue transaction). This way of implementing the gateway requires a coordinated operation between oracles of the Gravity network in both target blockchains."

But

"The Gravity protocol is universal for most blockchain networks with smart contracts (Ethereum, TRON, Stellar etc). Some limitations exist for scripting only blockchains, such as BTC or LTC."

Privacy Method being used

Compliance

• No KYC needed (21-7-2020).

Oracle Method being used

• From their FAQ (1-6-2020):

"Extractors are services that request and process data feeds from external sources. One extractor corresponds to one data feed supported by the node but can use and combine multiple data sources. Datafeeds supported by a Gravity node can be described as a boilerplate source code or its implementations as a data extractor. Each extractor collects data in accordance with the specification for the required data. The specification defines: where to get data from (recommended sources or mandatory sources), how to process data points received from different sources (e.g. aggregate them as median, average or mode over a certain period of time), the format in which data will be delivered to customers in target blockchains. Each operator of a Gravity node can develop and use custom implementations according to the described specification. Development of the specification, documentation, or implementation of extractors are managed as part of open source development flow by Gravity developers."

• Also has an integration with Band Protocol (21-7-2020).

• From the Graviton announcement (28-4-2021):

"To increase the reliability of the system, Gravity oracles will be deployed alongside with oracles of other prominent projects — Band, Chainlink and Keep3r."

Their Other Projects

Graviton

• From the announcement (28-4-2021):

"Graviton, an independent solution that boosts inter-chain liquidity, has introduced GTON, a governance and reward token, while preserving the principles of blockchain neutrality first instituted in Gravity. As described in this article, Graviton can be seen as the beginning of Gravity’s own reward economy."

SuSy

• From the Graviton announcement (28-4-2021):

"A cross-chain bridge, and its initial wrapped asset, pioneering in multiple cross-chain networks, was the Neutrino stablecoin USDN."

Governance

• From their FAQ (1-6-2020):

"Governance in Gravity achieved through manual scoring by node operators. For example, via manual scoring, the process of score modification takes place either for the nodes disconnected as a result of automatic shutdown after an incident, or when it is necessary to manually “score-boost” nodes of the operators with an established reputation in the industry (for example, a large exchange or a popular data aggregator).

The updates are possible with consuls, which are nodes with the maximum reputation score in the network that obtain special functions within the system. They are authorized to update/migrate the system smart contracts, nebula smart contracts and serve as consensus validators in the internal ledger."

Self Funding Mechanism

• From their blog (9-2-2021):

"As stated in the white paper, the Gravity protocol is designed as an open source blockchain-agnostic protocol without its own utility token. The options available for the support of long-term financial sustainability, as well as for sponsoring the development and research by different teams and attracting interested sponsors, are constrained in such systems and require an innovative approach. To solve this task, we are proposing a model of taxation/fee for each transaction to register at Gravity services or payment for data provision from USER-SC. All funds collected under this model go to a decentralized cross-chain treasury fund, where they can be managed by a special DAO.

The activity of the DAO will be directed towards achieving long-term financial sustainability of the protocol development. The treasury fund will be replenished by any external project sponsors interested in developing and promoting the protocol."

Upgrades

• From the 2020 round up (8-1-2021):

"SuSy, as a protocol and interface for cross-chain gateways, was the first alpha product built on Gravity. It supported Waves as the origin chain and Binance Smart Chain as the destination chain.

The SuSy mainnet alpha is currently live at susy.gravity.tech and provides an interface that allows users to swap USDN tokens from Waves into BSC."

Roadmap

• Can be found here (21-7-2020). At that moment they were at the first (Public Demo Net) of their for steps towards mainnet.
• Updated their roadmap (9-2-2021);

1. "Integration with Avalanche Blockchain
2. Launching ERC-20 gateways in the Waves blockchain
3. Gravity<->Polkadot integration
4. ERC-20 Autostaking NSBT (Neutrino Token)
5. Delegation gateway that allows to sign transactions in Waves from an Ethereum account
6. Integration of Fantom
7. Research into Optimistic Rollups integration
8. Diversification of Gravity Nodes
9. Decentralized Treasury: accumulating fees from Gravity operations and distributing between participants"

Audits

• Bug bounty program can be found [insert here].

Usage

Projects that use or built on it

• From their blog (28-4-2021):

"Gravity is fully operational on mainnet networks, integrated with five different blockchains such as Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Waves, Huobi Chain, Fantom, and Avalanche. In addition, it currently has testnet integrations with Tron, Solana, Cosmos and Polkadot."

• Coinranking is an oracle (3-8-2020).
• 1inch, is a node and will use Gravity to integrate with non-ETH ecosystems (14-8-2020).

Coin Distribution

• From its FAQ (1-6-2020):

"How is Gravity different than popular interchain solutions such as Polka, Cosmos, Aion etc?

Although Gravity solves the same global challenge with interchain communication, the solution that we propose does not entail the creation of a new master blockchain with a new native token which other public blockchain networks are integrated with. The Gravity protocol is blockchain-agnostic in a sense that instead of creating a new tokenomics with a new token, the Gravity network works with the economies of the native tokens of public blockchains integrated into Gravity.

How is Gravity different than popular oracle and interchain solutions such as Band, Chainlink, Provable etc?

Similarly to the interchain problem, although Gravity solves the same global challenge with oracle data provision, the solution that we propose does not entail the creation of a new oracle network that delivers data provision services in return for a payment in a new token. Paying for Gravity oracles’ services is done in the native liquid tokens of public blockchains integrated with the Gravity network.

Unlike Chainlink oracles, the Gravity network can be viewed as a single self-governing decentralized oracle with free entry for new members, instead of a framework to create centralized oracles or a marketplace with a partnership of oracles without free entry.

Unlike Provable, the Gravity network is decentralized.

How is Gravity different than popular token gateway solutions such as RenVM, Bisq, Atomic Swaps etc?

The Gravity protocol is a more low-level protocol vs. the protocols that provide transfers, which means that it can give rise to different asset provision protocols on top of it, thereby opening larger opportunities for fully automated and decentralized gateway solutions."

Team, Funding, Partnerships, etc.

Team

• Full team can be found [here].
• Built by Waves (2020)
• VentuaryLab is mentioned as the team behind Gravity (6-5-2021).
• Alexei Pupyshev; Protocol Architect & Team Leader of Gravity Protocol

Partners 

• Partners with Band Protocol (1-8-2020).
• Partners with Ontology (13-8-2020).
• Partners with TRON (13-8-2020)