How to cross the bridge: Interoperability among blockchain systems: Interoperability among blockchain systems

Blockchain research tends to focus on technical improvements and their potential for efficiency and productivity, repeatedly at the cost of comprehending the complex reciprocal interaction between social and technical aspects. One of the technical challenges for blockchain systems is scalability. Interoperability has proven effective in addressing scalability by offloading transactions via bridges, enhancing flexibility and portability for, e.g., tokens. As a result, we investigate how interoperability is organized in blockchain systems and what implications it might bring. In this research, we develop an on-ledger analytics prototype, which facilitates the examinations of NFT bridges and theorizes about the dimensions of interoperability. Practical implications reveal that hiding a token’s track in an otherwise supposedly transparent system is possible. We provide evidence that current research may only consider a subset of a token’s history among blockchain systems. Ultimately, we claim that interoperability among blockchain systems can lead to decreased transparency.