Differentiation

Trustless Hub differs from other decentralized automation solutions in several ways.

Bot networks

Bot networks offer decentralized scheduled execution of tasks. Setting up a bot on a server is hard-to-implement, and poses a central point of failure. Hence, decentralized networks of bots such as Gelato and Chainlink Keepers on Ethereum and CronCat on CosmWasm chains aim to solve this problem. Tasks are registered in an on-chain smart contract. The bot that is first to execute a task successfully can claim a reward. This solves some of the problems for enabling trust-minimized scheduled execution. However, opponents of this method identify several topics of discussion. The most common critique is on rewarding agents. By rewarding the agent on a first come basis, agents with better resources will win each time. As unprofitable agents exit the network, centralization occurs over time. Moreover, by printing fee tokens for rewards, the value of the token erodes over time, as can be seen in the price action of reward tokens.

A further downside not often mentioned is inefficiency. Transactions will be signed and executed by several bots at once. This is expensive, as fees will have to be paid by the bot network participants. Further, this increases network congestion. In times of network growth, this may lead to increased gas cost and reduced scalability of the bot network and the underlying general purpose smart contract blockchain. We also find some profound limitations for developers to this approach over our on-chain execution network. One of these is that the agent address that executes the task is arbitrary. Thus, it is not possible to automate assets based on a message grant by granting the executor to execute on an account’s behalf. Assets can be transferred to the bot network smart contract or to an intermediate contract, extracting them away from the user’s wallet. To liquify these assets, these assets would have to first have to be withdrawn from the smart contract. This adds complexity and poses smart contract risks, especially for when intermediate contracts are not programmed to account for arbitrary contract callers. Locking up assets for the complete duration can significantly increase liquidity risks of the task scheduler. As mentioned previously, the executor in Trustless Hub is the chain itself, allowing for rapid and secure development of time-based tasks in an easier, more efficient manner with minimal externality risks.

Privileged smart contracts

In CosmWasm implementations it is possible for privileged smart contacts to call functions on a block basis based on the BeginBlocker or EndBlocker function. Production blockchains where this is integrated are Injective and Tgrade. On Injective, CosmWasm contracts can interact with the on-chain orderbook, which uses block-based execution for trades. In addition, privileged smart contacts, granted by the team or chain governance can use the chain’s BeginBlocker or EndBlocker hooks. These are blockchain functions that run in the beginning and ending of the block, respectively, and allow the chain/contract to call the contract. On a high level, this approach is highly similar to our Trustless Contracts solution, as these also depend on the BeginBlocker or EndBlocker functions. Next to our solution being permissionless, execution parameters can be set easily at contract instantiation. In theory, a similar on-chain solution to Trustless Triggers may be built into a privileged smart contract. However, this poses several challenges and risks, to the underlying smart contract blockchain and their users in the long term.

Blockchains and their communities indirectly make a trade-off between blockspace availability for time-based calls and general purpose transactions. To combat unnecessary network congestion and spam, some measures would have to be taken at the smart contract and/or chain level. One of these measures is allowing only privileged smart contracts to execute. Other measures include a transaction limit or a fee mechanism. These mechanisms should be actively governed based on network conditions. Inadequate regulation endangers both protocol managers and end users in performing general purpose transactions. Excessive regulation may reduce decentralization and adoption. By granting only selected decentralized applications privileges, centralization may occur. As more privileged decentralized applications are built, approving privileges to new decentralized applications with minor enhancements may become harder to justify over time. Furthermore, having to request permission makes the network less attractive for new projects to choose the network as their preferred platform.

Trustless Hub provides a neutral and permissionless platform for developing time-based automation applications and has these mechanisms built right into the chain’s governance. Governance of trigger parameters fits into Cosmos’s App-Chain thesis as time-based programmability is the primary application of the chain. In practice, this means that sophisticated trade-offs can be made where the interest of to-be scheduled automations is safeguarded, and where developers and users do not experience excessive fees or restrictions.

On-Chain Automation

Because Trustless Hub automation on-chain, the caller of the execution is the validator set. Because of this, transfers of assets can be automated. This is the major difference that Trustless Hub provides compared to other solutions. With Transaction Automation using Interchain Accounts, the caller is a predictable address generated on-chain.

Trustless Triggers	Trustless Contracts	Bot Networks (Gelato, CronCat)
Time-based actions with a predictable address	Triggers triggered by a the contract that supports a wide range of events	Triggers are executed by a third party addresses
Automates financial transactions	Can create protocols with built-in automation	Can be used to create trading bots and other automated tools
Easy for end-users to set up	Requires technical expertise to develop and deploy	May require technical expertise to set up and integrate with bots
Highly customizable and flexible	Adaptable to a wide range of use cases	Can be customized and optimized for specific use cases
Enhances security and control over funds	smart contract risks	Smart contract risks and may pose additional security risks if not implemented correctly
Reduces transaction fees and increases efficiency	Can reduce the need for intermediaries and third-party payment processors	No relay time to consider as bots are off-chain