Isn't the whole IOU idea the same thing every DeFi bridge is utilizing right now?
Sending ETH from Ethereum to Avalanche or Polygon gives you fake Ethereum tokens that can only be redeemed on that same bridge once they try and exit the ecosystem and go back to ETH.
It's also not very conventient because it creates an evergrowing honeypot that once exploited will lose all of the real tokens just like Wormhole lost 180K ETH in one single exploit.
Also, the staking part is already utilized by Hop protocol. They reward users for pooling funds on different chains and they use those funds to help people move money around.
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Sounds like that's not anything what I have described here because you'd actually be able to claim the ETH before returning to the ETH ecosystem. Clearly there's a lot about bridges I didn't know about though because I never use them. Centralized exchanges are still cheaper and faster as far as I can tell. The risk is also pretty low as well.
I think I didn't explain it very well because you can do this as well. The fake Ethereum issued by the bridge can be bridged even further without the need to take it back to Ethereum first.
ETH from Ethereum can just keep going from ETH to Avalanche, to Polygon, BSC, xDAI and then go back to Ethereum from there. Some centralized exchanges will even let you deposit Ethereum/Matic/Avax from many different chains and issue real tokens to your exchange wallet.
For larger sums, I would say this is the way to go. There are some bridges that are almost always reliable like Hop and Xpollinate but you can never know when some transactions can end up being "stuck" for various reasons.
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This is a huge misnomer, because the tokens on an exchange aren't 'real' tokens, ever. Tokens on an exchange are always exchange-pegged tokens. The only real tokens are the ones we control in self-hosted wallets.
This probably sounds weird to 90% of the people who read it, so it's worth further explanation. There's a reason why Hive on HiveEngine is called SWAP.HIVE. Same for SWAP.BTC, SWAP.DOGE, and whatever else. This is because SWAP.HIVE isn't Hive, it's a token pegged to Hive.
Similarly, this is true for ALL exchanges, not just Hive engine. So when we see BTC on Coinbase, that isn't BTC. That is actually a token pegged to BTC and they just call it BTC out of simplicity instead of Pegged-BTC, which is what it actually is.
Not sure how relevant this not-your-keys-not-your-crypto rant is, but whatever.
Is what it is.
All tokens on exchanges are the original IOUs.
Decentralized bridges take it to the next level.