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2009 the emergence of a Blockchain project based on advanced cryptography and a secure consensus mechanism, Bitcoin naturally led to a wave of new Blockchain projects aiming to improve on Satoshi Nakamoto’s creation. The follow up projects were mostly variations of the original, a medium of exchange, digital cash, and focused on helping people to transact in a Peer to Peer (P2P) environment. Much like Bitcoin in 2009, when Ethereum went live in 2015, following a proliferation of projects claiming to be able to provide smart contract platforms that were faster, cheaper, and generally more capable than the Ethereum network. Today, 2019, and Bitcoin and Ethereum remain two of the most popular chains, and Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard accounts for over three quarters of all the tokens on the market. Despite all the development, improvements and proclaimed supremacy, today, many Blockchain protocols aiming to become the 'industry standard', exception others to find solutions to interoperate, connect. Current Blockchain protocols like EOS, Ethereum, or Hashgraph don’t ‘speak’ the same languages. Therefore, the entire Blockchain ecosystem is dispersed and in need of a universal method of communication or multiple bridges which work to connect the various chains and entities.
All Blockchains, ledgers, graphs and DAGs (Directed Acyclic Graph) perform a different set of transactions and handle different amounts of data processing. "Interoperability" one of the buzzwords of 2019, with the goal of connecting different Blockchain protocols and separate DLT projects. Many new projects including OneLedger, Universal Protocol, Quant, and plenty of "older" ones ie. Ark, Bytom, and Komodo are looking to build bridges that connect the ever expanding Blockchain ecosystem.
The different industries and pain-points Blockchain projects try to tackle are for example:
enhance payments on the Internet of Things, the IOTA Blockchain.
(with similar capabilities) but with the aim of strengthening supply chain management, the VeChain Blockchain
a global payment network for solving low latency issues in remote areas for remittance, the Stellar Blockchain
By developing seamlessly interactive networks that retain the ability to communicate with each other the Blockchain community will inevitably push the sector forward towards a new era of significant mainstream adoption. Whether these inter-connected networks are developed through numerous open protocols, or comprehensive multi-chain frameworks, the most important thing is that the functionality of DLT projects and general user experience is greatly enhanced.
