In this instalment of the XSGD Hackathon showcase, we will be showcasing the runner-up winner — XSGDBridge.

XSGDBridge was created to allow the swapping of the ZRC-2 XSGD & ERC-20 XSGD via hash timelock contract.

Today, we have with us Joshia, creator of XSGDBridge, to share with us more about his entry.

If you’ve missed the previous showcase of our XSGD hackathon winner — Zilgraph — you can check it out here.

Can you provide an introduction to yourself, please?

Hey, I am Joshia and I’m a crypto enthusiast who dabbles with cryptocurrencies. I have been developing dApps since 2017. I am also a pianist and a music producer. You can find my SoundCloud here and also my latest mix here.

How did you learn about the hackathon?

I have been following Zilliqa for a while now and chanced upon the hackathon through Zilliqa’s social media.

Can you provide a description of your project, please?

It’s a hash timelock contract for atomic swaps across ZRC2 XSGD and ERC20 XSGD. Its functionality is to be the bridge between these 2 protocols and allow users to transfer XSGD across chains without a third-party escrow.

Where did you get inspiration for XSGDBridge and how did you come up with the idea?

I mainly drew inspiration from the list of given ideas of the hackathon brief.

I also used Bitcoin’s lightning network whitepaper as my point of reference to further ideate XSGDBridge.

How did you prepare for the hackathon? What are some of the tools and resources that you’ve utilised in your project?

I mainly studied Bitcoin’s lightning network paper to familiarise myself with the algorithm.

As for tools and resources I used the following:

Scilla IDE — An integrated development environment for coding with Scilla

Solidity IDE — An integrated development environment for coding with Solidity

Zilliqa Developer Telegram — Developer community to get answers regarding programming with Scilla

How would you describe your experience throughout the hackathon? What were some of the challenges you’ve faced and how did you overcome them?

The Zilliqa ecosystem is still evolving and the tooling breaks occasionally. I had issues where transactions were prevented from broadcasting to a simulated environment.

Thankfully, after asking on the Zilliqa Developer Community chat, I was able to find out the problem and used a staging site recommended by Amrit Kumar, Co-founder of Zilliqa.

What will you envision the XSGD ecosystem to be moving forward?

It is time for an alternative to USD-based stablecoins.

The XSGD ecosystem will definitely be useful and complement the cryptocurrency and decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem as a whole by providing an alternative decentralized Forex mechanism.

However, I find it unlikely for XSGD to take over payment processors in Singapore due to many other underlying issues with commercial use of blockchain technology and its adoption at the current moment.

What recommendations or tips would you have for a first-time developer using Zilliqa?

‍Although the documentation on scilla can be a little difficult to understand for people who aren’t already familiar with a functional programming language, I would still recommend for anyone interested to just dive into development by referencing existing contracts.

If you find yourself stuck, you can always ask on the Zilliqa Developer Telegram channel! The folks there are very helpful.

Do you have plans to continue working on XSGDBridge? If so, what are some of the updates that we will see in the near future?

‍Unfortunately, a key problem I am facing would be providing cross-chain liquidity. For the atomic swap to occur there would need to be two pools of funds on both chains that are ready to be exchanged.

As XSGD is in the custody of Xfers, this liquidity problem is best addressed by Xfers as they have the ability to mint XSGD on Ethereum and Zilliqa.

The hash timelock contract could also be a useful accounting mechanism for cross-chain swaps if done internally by the Xfers team. It does not require centralized mint and burn mechanics that can place a significant burden of security on Xfers as Xfers would become a point of failure in the XSGD system.

Overall, I’m not in the best position to implement this at scale. However, XSGDBridge provides a proof of concept “hack” on how this can be achieved.

And that concludes our interview with Joshia, also huge thanks for taking the time to answer our questions!

If you wish to check out other projects which we have done a showcase for, you can check them out here:

• First-prize winner — Zilgraph

Stay tuned for more showcases of the projects that were part of the hackathon!