Guide to Tangle Network and Webb Protocol

Tangle Network and Webb Protocol join forces to enhance privacy, interoperability, and scalability for decentralized applications (dApps). This guide provides a detailed overview of Webb Protocol, its core components, and its role in the Tangle Network ecosystem.

Overview

Webb Protocol aims to resolve privacy and scalability issues that have become ubiquitous in the world of decentralized applications. It achieves this by offering a privacy-focused, interoperable, and scalable framework that interacts with various blockchains.

Tangle Network, a Substrate-based platform fully compatible with Ethereum, hosts and supports the governance of this transformative protocol to offer advanced privacy options and scalability to developers and users.

Core Components of Webb Protocol

Webb Protocol introduces two pivotal components - the Anchor System and the Distributed Key Generation (DKG) protocol.

Anchor System

The Anchor System is a smart contract-based, graph-like framework that maintains an interconnected network of blockchains, referred to as anchors. Each anchor features an on-chain Merkle tree and an edge list to manage and update linked metadata, enabling cross-chain applications with potential privacy features.

The system guarantees Liveness and Safety— ensuring the continuous update of all anchors and validating all anchor updates. Oracle and Relayer Networks in a partially-synchronous environment connect the various blockchains and preserve user privacy by delegating proof submission through an overlay network.

Distributed Key Generation (DKG) protocol

The DKG protocol is the security foundation of Webb Protocol. It validates updates in the Anchor System using a shared key pair. This protocol employs a cryptographic multi-party mechanism to generate a shared public and private key for threshold signatures and threshold encryptions. It encompasses two significant protocols— the threshold-key-generation protocol, and the threshold-signature-scheme or the distributed signing protocol. This secure framework handles signed messages and ensures the absence of malicious proposals.

Operations within a Proof of Stake (PoS) Blockchain

Webb Protocol operates within a PoS blockchain protocol. It adapts to changing validator set sizes and maintains security with the execution of the Key Rotation Protocol and Misbehaviour Protocol during each session. The system uses standardized messages to facilitate seamless communication within the system.

Unique Features

Webb Protocol employs a hybrid threshold and light-client validation protocol. It allows for threshold-signed messages to be deemed valid while enforcing message signing only when they can be verified as true against a light client.