Omni LS DApp - The easiest, fastest and most secure way to access Bifrost Liquid Staking Tokens from any chain

Bifrost
5 min readOct 12, 2023

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What is Omni LS DApp?

Omni LS DApp is a front-end application developed by Bifrost that supports remote minting and redemption of Bifrost liquid staking tokens (LST) “vTokens”, as well as Remote Exchange and Swap of vTokens.

This front-end application is powered by the SLPx module deployed on the chain, which consists of the local pallet/smart contract of the Bifrost chain and the remote pallet/smart contract on the remote chain.

Currently, Omni LS DApp supports remote minting, redemption, and exchange on the EVM Parachains such as Astar, Moonbeam, Moonriver and Polkadot relay chain, as well as on Ethereum.

What problem does the Omni LS DApp solve?

Bifrost’s vToken is an LST asset created by the Staking Liquidity Protocol (SLP). Currently, Bifrost supports vDOT, vKSM, vGLMR, vMOVR, vBNC, vFIL, and vETH. Except for vETH and vFIL, the other vTokens require users to transfer their corresponding assets to the Bifrost chain before these can be minted into their respective LSTs.

This process poses challenges for user experience and broader adoption.

Suppose there is a lending and borrowing protocol on Moonbeam that supports vDOT as collateral. This feature is beneficial for users as they can earn additional staking rewards compared to collateralizing DOT. However, with the current process, if a user only has DOT on Moonbeam, they would need to follow these following steps:

  1. Transfer DOT from Moonbeam to Bifrost through cross-chain transfer.
  2. Stake DOT on the Bifrost chain to obtain vDOT.
  3. Transfer vDOT back to Moonbeam through cross-chain transfer.
  4. Collateralize vDOT on Moonbeam and borrow the desired asset.

An Easy Solution

The Omni LS DApp aims to simplify this process and provide a seamless experience for users to natively mint and utilize vTokens across different chains.

Instead of the user needing to operate in four steps and sign transactions four times, with the Omni LS DApp, steps can be shortened to just two:

  1. In the Omni LS DApp, directly convert DOT on Moonbeam into vDOT.
  2. Lend vDOT on the native Moonbeam lending protocol and borrow the desired assets.

In addition to remote minting, the Omni LS DApp also supports remote redemption and exchange:

  • Remote redemption: Users can directly redeem vTokens for their original tokens on other chains without the need to transfer them to the Bifrost chain.
  • Remote exchange: Users can exchange vTokens for their original tokens, or vice versa, on other chains without the need to transfer assets to the Bifrost chain. However, the liquidity used behind the scenes is from the Bifrost chain.

In summary, the Omni LS Dapp allows users to directly mint, redeem, and exchange vTokens on remote chains in just one click, without the need to switch between multiple Dapps and chains to complete these operations.

Is the Omni LS DApp secure?

The backend of Omni LS DApp utilizes the SLPx module developed by Bifrost, which has undergone an audit by Common Prefix.

The Audit Report can be found here.

Currently, Omni LS DApp only supports remote operations on Polkadot parachains. The security of cross-chain message transmission behind these remote operations is ensured by the Polkadot relay chain. As a multi-chain system that shares security, communication between Polkadot parachains has a high level of security.

In the future, if Omni LS DApp needs to support remote operations on heterogeneous chains, it will require support from a cross-chain bridge infrastructure. The security of heterogeneous cross-chain bridges is still an unresolved issue, and we will exercise great caution in this regard.

Omni LS DApp Operation Guide

Click to visit the Omni LS DApp homepage: omni.ls

To connect your wallet, click on the “Connect Wallet” button located in the top right corner.

Remote Minting

  1. Click on the “Stake” tab.
  2. Select the asset you want to remotely mint into its respective LST “vToken”.
  3. Go to the minting page.
  4. Enter the desired quantity.
  5. Click on “mint”.

The vToken will be minted on the original chain where the asset is located.

Remote Redemption

To remotely redeem an asset, follow these steps:

  1. Click on the “Unstake” tab.
  2. Select the asset you want to redeem.
  3. Go to the redemption page.
  4. Enter the quantity of the asset.
  5. Click on “redeem”.

The original token will be redeemed to the chain where the vToken is located.

Remote Exchange

To perform a swap, navigate to the Swap tab, select the type of asset you want to exchange, enter the desired amount, and click on the “Swap” button.

The Future Development of Omni LS DApp

The architecture of Polkadot naturally enables the possibility of Omni-chain applications. However, this potential has not yet been fully explored, and many applications still choose to deploy on a single parachain. Even with multi-chain deployment, it essentially replicates a single-chain Dapp on different chains.

From the user’s perspective, an Omni-chain Dapp is an application that can be accessed on any chain. Users shouldn’t have to worry about which chain they are on and should be able to use it like a local native Dapp on any chain.

Whilst multi-chain deployment can achieve to some extent similar effects, contracts deployed on different chains cannot communicate with each other. This leads to issues such as inconsistent asset formats and fragmented liquidity.

We believe that the Omni LS DApp’s remote access feature is the solution for Omni-chain Dapps. We hope that applications integrated with vTokens can incorporate the functionality of Omni LS DApp through a series of strategic integrations. When a user on Moonbeam uses a lending Dapp to collateralize DOT, the system automatically converts DOT to vDOT, combining four steps into one.

We are also about to launch corresponding incentive programs to encourage developers and DeFi applications to explore more complex and useful integrations.

Conclusion

We have introduced the front-end interface developed by Bifrost - the new Omni LS DApp!

This interface enables users to remotely mint, redeem, and exchange vTokens. Compared to the original process, Omni LS DApp simplifies the user experience by allowing users to utilize the services provided by the Bifrost chain on remote chains, such as local DApps.

In terms of security, currently, the Omni LS DApp only supports remote access to Polkadot parachains. However, in the future, we plan to gradually support heterogeneous chains.

Omni LS DApp serves as an example application developed by Bifrost. We hope to see more third-party applications adopting a similar approach to deeply integrate Bifrost vTokens and make LSTs a key primitive within DeFi.

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