Web3 Foundation Offers Grant to Interlay for Creating Bitcoin – Polkadot Bridge

Interlay, an inter-blockchain compatibility venture, has received a grant from Web3 Foundation for moving forward with its work on Polkadot.

The funds will be utilized to build a parachain on Polkadot and link to the Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain.

Interlay is one of the receivers of Web3 Foundation’s fifth phase of grants planned in Q1 2020.

Parachain is an application-specific data structure that is worldwide coherent and validatable by the validators of the Polkadot relay chain.

The Web3 Grants program backs various groups and ventures that are working to advance Polkadot in a range of environments.

The maximum amount awarded is $100,000 and is linked to the completion of specific milestones, although the foundation does not divulge the actual amount awarded for each project.

The financing is mainly earmarked for software programmers creating framework for Polkadot. The software will concentrate on parachains and association with other ventures, unique wallets, testing toolsets and UI creation.

The foundation will also finance attempts to study Polkadot’s safety, covenant and benchmarking, in addition to other educational pursuits.

Interlay claims to be a venture focused on interoperability in decentralized finance (DeFi). It has created an interoperability network called Xclaim, with the intention of developing assets backed one-to-one across various chains.

From 2018, the company has been doing the necessary work for blockchain neutral installation of Xclaim.

Xclaim depends on “collateralized intermediaries” to pave way for the transfer of funds from one chain to another.

The system also permits users to transform “its own intermediary,” much like how atomic swaps would function.

On the basis of Hash Time Locked Contracts (HTLC), programmers point out that Xclaim is “95% faster and 65% cheaper” than atomic swaps.

The Polkadot venture is headed by Parity Technologies, an enterprise co-founded by Gavin Wood, who earlier co-founded Ethereum (ETH) blockchain.

It intends to be an deployment of an interoperable and sharded blockchain, straightaway rivaling with Ethereum’s platform.

The venture has hogged the limelight for various high-profile integrations of network players who were originally focused on Ethereum.

On February 25, it revealed a synthesis with Chainlink to offer Polkadot powered oracles, a main feature for activating DeFi.

Couple of days ago, a strategic partnership with Celer Network was inked with an intention to implement its layer-two sidechains to Polkadot.

With the Interlay award, it seems that the venture has now established its focus to bring Bitcoin onboard as well.