An Algebraic-Topological Approach to Processing Cross-Blockchain Transactions

Understand

The state-of-the-art techniques for processing cross-blockchain transactions take a simple centralized approach: when the assets on blockchain $X$, say $X$-coins, are exchanged with the assets on blockchain $Y$---the $Y$-coins, those $X$-coins need to be exchanged to a "middle" medium (such as Bitcoin) that is then exchanged to $Y$-coins.

• If there are more than two parties involved in a single global transaction, the global transaction is split into multiple local two-party transactions, each of which follows the above central-exchange protocol.
• Unfortunately, the atomicity of the global transaction is violated with the central-exchange approach: those local two-party transactions, once committed, cannot be rolled back if the global transaction decides to abort.
• In a more general sense, the graph-based model of (two-party) transactions can hardly be extended to an arbitrary number of parties in a cross-blockchain transaction.