ICON

<p>On June 15th, we successfully concluded a closed test for <a href="https://icon.community/xcall/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">xCall</a>. Five teams were selected from the ICON community to participate based on their prior contributions to the ecosystem. Testing period lasted two weeks.</p><p>Our main goals during this testing period were to stabilize the xCall product prior to a broader roll out and to identify key areas of improvement that would optimize a dApp developer’s experience with xCall.</p><p>In order to achieve these goals, each participating team created testing dApps that executed transactions between xCall-connected chains: ICON, Ethereum, BSC, and Havah. This recap outlines in detail the extensive feedback and data that we gathered from these teams after testing.</p><p>Thank you to all the teams that made the xCall focus testing a success.</p><h3 id="table-of-contents">Table of Contents</h3><ul><li><a href="https://icon.community/blog/2023/xcall-focus-testing-recap/#what-is-xcall-a-cross-chain-aggregator" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">What is xCall: A Cross Chain Aggregator</a></li><li><a href="https://icon.community/blog/2023/xcall-focus-testing-recap/#why-xcall" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Why xCall?</a></li><li><a href="https://icon.community/blog/2023/xcall-focus-testing-recap/#xcall-focus-testing-scope" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">xCall Focus Testing: Scope</a></li><li><a href="https://icon.community/blog/2023/xcall-focus-testing-recap/#xcall-focus-testing-key-results" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">xCall Focus Testing: Key Results</a><a href="https://icon.community/blog/2023/xcall-focus-testing-recap/#code-outputs-per-team" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Code Outputs Per Team<br /></a><a href="https://icon.community/blog/2023/xcall-focus-testing-recap/#issues-and-discussions" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Issues and Discussions<br /></a><a href="https://icon.community/blog/2023/xcall-focus-testing-recap/#initial-cost-estimates-of-sending-messages-with-xcall-over-btp" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Initial cost estimates of sending messages with xCall over BTP<br /></a><a href="https://icon.community/blog/2023/xcall-focus-testing-recap/#initial-time-estimates-of-sending-messages-with-xcall-over-btp" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Initial time estimates of sending messages with xCall over BTP</a></li><li><a href="https://icon.community/blog/2023/xcall-focus-testing-recap/#what-the-teams-are-saying-about-xcall" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">What the Teams Are Saying About xCall</a></li><li><a href="https://icon.community/blog/2023/xcall-focus-testing-recap/#takeaways-and-next-steps" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Takeaways and Next Steps</a></li><li><a href="https://icon.community/blog/2023/xcall-focus-testing-recap/#public-xcall-incentivized-testnet-coming-soon" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Public xCall Incentivized Testnet: Coming Soon</a></li><li><a href="https://icon.community/blog/2023/xcall-focus-testing-recap/#available-xcall-resources-list-still-growing" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Available xCall Resources (list still growing)</a></li></ul><h3 id="what-is-xcall-a-cross-chain-aggregator">What is xCall: A Cross Chain Aggregator</h3><p>xCall is a single standard for dApps to deploy cross chain messages across any interoperability solution available today. xCall is specifically designed to make it as easy as possible for a developer to add cross chain functionality to their dApps—with one line of code, a developer can execute messages across multiple protocols. As a result, developers can focus on building great services and leave the varying complications of executing cross chain transactions across different systems to xCall, which handles the specifics in the backend. Hence, our slogan for xCall:</p><blockquote>“Write once, deploy everywhere”</blockquote><h3 id="why-xcall">Why xCall?</h3><p>xCall is not a bridge aggregator (i.e., <a href="https://li.fi/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">LiFi</a>, <a href="https://socket.tech/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Socket</a>) nor is it an interoperability protocol (i.e., <a href="https://github.com/iconloop/btp2-testnet" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">BTP</a>, <a href="https://ibcprotocol.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">IBC</a>, <a href="https://wormhole.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Wormhole</a>. xCall aggregates the features of all interoperability protocols through a single interface that standardizes cross chain messaging across the different protocols. Through such standardization, xCall is able to simplify cross chain dApp development for developers and to enable developers to leverage the unique strengths of the underlying interoperability protocols.</p><p>An application of leveraging benefits of multiple interoperability protocols could be multi-protocol verification, which is sending a cross chain transaction over not one, but two or more underlying interoperability protocols to reduce risks associated with relying on just one protocol when sending assets cross chain.</p><h3 id="xcall-focus-testing-scope">xCall Focus Testing: Scope</h3><p>Needless to say, we are very excited about bringing xCall to market and the focus test brought us one step closer to that goal. During the testing period, the following teams,</p><ul><li><a href="https://twitter.com/staky_icon?s&#61;20" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Staky</a> (the team behind <a href="https://craft.network/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Craft</a>)</li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/hugobyte?s&#61;20" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Hugobyte</a> (main contributors to <a href="https://github.com/iconloop/btp2-testnet" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">BTP</a>)</li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/Venture23xyz?s&#61;20" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Venture23</a> (main contributors to <a href="https://balanced.network/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Balanced</a> and team behind <a href="https://twitter.com/GangstaVerse?s&#61;20" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Gangstaverse</a>)</li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/protokol7_com?s&#61;20" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Protokol7</a> (main contributors to various ICON projects, including a learning platform in the works called <a href="https://crypto-pandas.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Crypto Pandas</a>)</li><li><a href="https://twitter.com/Paul__Rouge?s&#61;20" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Paul Rouge</a> (founder of <a href="https://www.blobble.xyz/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Blobble World</a>)</li></ul><p>were tasked with creating simple testing dApps that would test the following features:</p><ul><li>Single-hop</li><li>Multi-hop</li><li>Rollback</li><li>One-way message, one-way response</li><li>EVM-EVM</li><li>EVM-JVM</li><li>JVM-EVM</li><li>JVM-JVM</li></ul><p>Focus testers were asked to test their dApps by submitting a variety of transaction types, the most effective way of finding bugs or other issues. Sample transaction types include the following:</p><ul><li>Simple, ‘hello world’, one-way transactions</li><li>Transactions with partially complete data, which should be compiled on the receiving end as the full data arrives via multiple messagesE.g. (1) “hello w”, (2) “orld”<br /></li><li>Transactions with a batch of messagesE.g. (1) [“hello world 1”, “hello world 2”, “hello world 3”]<br /></li></ul><p>Finally, testers were asked to check transactions for speed, cost, and accuracy.</p><p><img src="https://icon-community.imgix.net/blog/2023/xcall-focus-testing-recap/live-on-testnet.jpg?w&#61;1920&amp;fit&#61;max&amp;auto&#61;format&amp;fm&#61;pjpg&amp;q&#61;50&amp;gif-q&#61;35" /></p><h3 id="xcall-focus-testing-key-results">xCall Focus Testing: Key Results</h3><p>At the end of the two-week testing period, the teams collectively produced:</p><ul><li>over hundreds of test transactions</li><li>10 code repositories</li><li>4 team reports &#43; one upcoming</li><li>12 Github Issues, all being actively triaged</li><li>5 Github Discussions</li></ul><p>Below are links to each team’s output, reported issues, and a summary of cost and time estimates using xCall over BTP:</p><p>Code Outputs Per Team</p><p><strong>Staky</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://github.com/Staky-io/x-call-testing-contracts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Testing contracts</a></li><li><a href="https://github.com/Staky-io/x-call-test-frontend" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Testing front-end</a></li><li><a href="https://github.com/Staky-io/xcall-testing-scripts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Testing scripts</a></li></ul><p><strong>Hugobyte</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://github.com/HugoByte/btp-dapp-sample" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/HugoByte/btp-dapp-sample</a></li></ul><p><strong>Venture23</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://github.com/naneey/Xcall-Dapp-sample-testing" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/naneey/Xcall-Dapp-sample-testing</a></li></ul><p><strong>Protokol7</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://github.com/R0bi7/xCall-testing-dApp" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/R0bi7/xCall-testing-dApp</a> (Typescript dApp for testing messaging)</li><li><a href="https://github.com/R0bi7/xCall-testing-EVM" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/R0bi7/xCall-testing-EVM</a> (Solidity Smart Contracts)</li><li><a href="https://github.com/R0bi7/xCall-testing-JVM" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/R0bi7/xCall-testing-JVM</a> (JAVA Smart Contracts)</li></ul><p><strong>Paul Rouge</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://github.com/paulrouge/xcall-testing-evm" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/paulrouge/xcall-testing-evm</a> (evm)</li><li><a href="https://github.com/paulrouge/icon-scripts" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/paulrouge/icon-scripts</a> (scripts)</li></ul><h3 id="issues-and-discussions">Issues and Discussions</h3><ul><li><a href="https://github.com/icon-project/btp2/issues" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/icon-project/btp2/issues</a></li><li><a href="https://github.com/icon-project/btp2/discussions" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/icon-project/btp2/discussions</a></li></ul><h3 id="initial-cost-estimates-of-sending-messages-with-xcall-over-btp">Initial cost estimates of sending messages with xCall over BTP</h3><p>The following <a href="https://github.com/iconloop/btp2-testnet/wiki/Fee-System" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">xCall transaction fees</a> were approximated from testing by the Core Development team.</p><img src="https://academy-public.coinmarketcap.com/srd-optimized-uploads/78ff435728af4d7eaf6959c944e6c198.png" /><p>If an xCall transaction includes a ‘rollback message’, which happens if there is an error on the destination chain, then the fees are expected to increase due to the secondary transaction on the source chain.</p><h3 id="initial-time-estimates-of-sending-messages-with-xcall-over-btp">Initial time estimates of sending messages with xCall over BTP</h3><p>Timing estimates for xCall using BTP depend on the time it takes for a chain to finalize a transaction.</p><img src="https://academy-public.coinmarketcap.com/srd-optimized-uploads/61b3d48330f84debb3ff951847ea7ffc.png" /><p><img src="https://icon-community.imgix.net/blog/2023/xcall-focus-testing-recap/community-testers.jpg?w&#61;1920&amp;fit&#61;max&amp;auto&#61;format&amp;fm&#61;pjpg&amp;q&#61;50&amp;gif-q&#61;35" /></p><h3 id="what-the-teams-are-saying-about-xcall">What the Teams Are Saying About xCall</h3><p><strong>Staky</strong></p><blockquote>“[T]hanks to this program we were able to make appropriate feedbacks to the ICON team to improve the overall experience for everyone.” - Staky on <a href="https://twitter.com/helloiconworld/status/1669676333276999680?s&#61;20" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">&#64;helloiconworld</a></blockquote><p>Positives</p><ul><li>You can read the docs to find out how to use xCall. All of the steps are there</li><li>The team put together a demo app, which was used as the basis of this team’s dApp</li></ul><p>Room for improvement</p><ul><li>Some of the documentation steps require careful reading. They should be made more clear</li><li>The demo dApp can be a bit complicated to set up. This too should be made simpler<br /></li></ul><p><strong>HugoByte</strong></p><blockquote>“Excited to witness xCall and its impact on the future!” - HugoByte on <a href="https://twitter.com/helloiconworld/status/1675474492708245504?s&#61;20" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">&#64;helloiconworld</a></blockquote><p>Positives</p><ul><li>Enjoyed the challenging and interesting experience of testing xCall</li><li>Core development team was responsive and quickly fixed many of the issues raised by this team</li></ul><p>Room for improvement</p><ul><li>More documentation on setting up local environment for testing could have been useful<br /></li></ul><p><strong>Venture23</strong></p><blockquote>“It felt as if I had conjured a portal to another world” - Venture23 on <a href="https://twitter.com/helloiconworld/status/1673662604219121666?s&#61;20" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">&#64;helloiconworld</a></blockquote><p>Positives</p><ul><li>Deploying the dapp in a local environment was straightforward</li></ul><p>Room for improvement</p><ul><li>Confusing to recognize when transactions faile</li><li>Test examples could have better documentation</li><li>Long finality time of Ethereum chain means that messages involving that chain will take time to be delivered<br /></li></ul><p><strong>Protokol7</strong></p><blockquote>“[C]ore team did an amazing job preparing docs and base demo app, equipping us with the necessary information right from the beginning” - Protokol7 on <a href="https://twitter.com/helloiconworld/status/1668589106627235840?s&#61;20" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">&#64;helloiconworld</a></blockquote><p>Positives</p><ul><li>There was plenty of documentation to get started experimenting with xCall</li><li>Core team was highly responsive during testing</li></ul><p>Room for improvement</p><ul><li>It is important to have more documentation, demos, and experienced developers in this area to jumpstart the xCall ecosystem<br /></li></ul><p><strong>Paul Rouge</strong></p><blockquote>“Now to delve into testing and exploring the intricate aspects of xCall” - Paul Rouge on <a href="https://twitter.com/helloiconworld/status/1666958338012360705?s&#61;20" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">&#64;helloiconworld</a></blockquote><p>Positives</p><ul><li>Was happy to see xCall as a near completed product ready to build dApps</li><li>The security benefits of the rollback feature was quite interesting</li></ul><p>Room for improvement</p><ul><li>Difficult to understand the state of transactions, especially in the case of transaction failure</li><li>Easier access to testnet tokens for BSC</li></ul><h3 id="takeaways-and-next-steps">Takeaways and Next Steps</h3><p>Based on the detailed feedback provided by each team, here are a list of priorities that we will be implementing through the triage period before launching an incentivized testnet for a broader audience:</p><ul><li>Improve README in example repository setup documentations so that all setup information is available in one place</li><li>Improve availability of resources related to event logging of connected chains, including tutorials and improved documentations for how to create and check the status of an xCall transaction</li><li>Provide better resources describing the path of the transaction through xCall and through xCall &#43; BTP, including information about timing and fees of connected networks</li><li>Make sure relayer status is available</li><li>Make docker image for relayer</li><li>Maximize availability of test BNB and test ETH for developers</li></ul><h3 id="public-xcall-incentivized-testnet-coming-soon">Public xCall Incentivized Testnet: Coming Soon</h3><p>A Notion page detailing guidelines and challenges for the public xCall incentivized testnet program will be released soon. The public incentivized testnet program is scheduled to launch on July 31st.</p><h3 id="available-xcall-resources">Available xCall Resources</h3><p>For those who would like to experiment with xCall and create their own cross chain dApps, here is a compilation of useful guides:</p><ul><li>xCall documentation: <a href="https://docs.icon.community/cross-chain-communication/xcall" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://docs.icon.community/cross-chain-communication/xcall</a></li><li>What is xCall (high level): <a href="https://icon.community/xcall" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://icon.community/xcall</a></li><li>Awesome ICON : <a href="https://github.com/icon-community/awesome-icon#interoperability" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/icon-community/awesome-icon#interoperability</a></li><li>Example xCall dApp : <a href="https://github.com/icon-project/btp2/tree/main/e2edemo" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/icon-project/btp2/tree/main/e2edemo</a></li><li>Another example xCall dApp : <a href="https://github.com/R0bi7/xCall-testing-dApp" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/R0bi7/xCall-testing-dApp</a> , <a href="https://github.com/R0bi7/xCall-testing-JVM" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/R0bi7/xCall-testing-JVM</a> , <a href="https://github.com/R0bi7/xCall-testing-EVM" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/R0bi7/xCall-testing-EVM</a></li><li>xCall contract finder : <a href="https://github.com/FidelVe/btp-contracts-finder" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/FidelVe/btp-contracts-finder</a></li><li>xCall fee system : <a href="https://github.com/iconloop/btp2-testnet/wiki/Fee-System" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/iconloop/btp2-testnet/wiki/Fee-System</a></li><li>BTP relay status : <a href="https://github.com/iconloop/btp2-testnet/wiki/BTP2-WIKI" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/iconloop/btp2-testnet/wiki/BTP2-WIKI</a></li><li>BTP/xCall solidity package : <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/&#64;iconfoundation/btp2-solidity-library" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://www.npmjs.com/package/&#64;iconfoundation/btp2-solidity-library</a></li><li>BTP ICON improvement proposal : <a href="https://github.com/icon-project/IIPs/blob/master/IIPS/iip-25.md" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/icon-project/IIPs/blob/master/IIPS/iip-25.md</a></li><li>xCall ICON improvement proposal : <a href="https://github.com/icon-project/IIPs/blob/master/IIPS/iip-52.md" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">https://github.com/icon-project/IIPs/blob/master/IIPS/iip-52.md</a></li></ul><p>Keep in mind that xCall is an evolving product. If you encounter issues during testing, you can reach out for support troubleshooting by joining the ICON’s developer community on the <a href="https://discord.gg/ZmxwmpXM" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">ICON Discord</a>. Happy testing!</p>

xCall Focus Testing Recap - Reposted from https://icon.community/

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