If you're running a blockchain project, your token holders are limited to whatever your L1 or L2 provides. The fees, the transaction types, the trading mechanics -- they're baked in. What if you could allow your tokens to move into an environment where a whole new set of capacities is unlocked?
Unyt is a peer-to-peer accounting framework built on Holochain that lets groups define their own economic rules -- their own currencies, fee structures, and programmable agreements. With this week's release, Unyt can now bridge to EVM blockchains, making it possible to lock your ERC-20 or other tokens on Ethereum and mirror them into a Unyt app that is configured however you want.
Bridging to Unyt: Like an L2 with Extended Capabilities
Unyt isn't a traditional Layer 2. It's a different kind of infrastructure entirely. But when you bridge blockchain tokens into a Unyt app, it can function like one -- with capabilities that go well beyond what a typical L2 offers:
- Peer-to-peer. No miners, stakers, or gas fees needed. Instead, because Unyt apps are built with Holochain, validation is efficient enough that it is performed by the participants' own devices. Every action is cryptographically auditable, and dishonest actors are detected and excluded by peers.
- Customizable fees. Set fees to whatever makes sense for your project -- including zero. Use them to fund development, reward participants, or simply eliminate them to remove friction.
- Smart agreements. Programmable economic logic that puts agents at the center and goes beyond simple token transfers -- non-custodial escrow, recurring billing, bulk processing, multi-currency trades, and whatever your imagination can conceive of.
- Direct trading. Exchange value without needing order books or hopping across multiple trading pairs and limited liquidity pools. No more Token A → ETH → USDT → Token B.
- Define additional units. Beyond the bridged token, you can create native units for whatever else you want to account for, whether measurable (bandwidth, storage), monetary (an additional currency), or something else.
How the Bridge Works
Bridging between Unyt apps and blockchains relies on blockchain smart contracts, Unyt bridging agreements, and one or more bridge agents -- participating agents that you set up and authorize to take actions within your Unyt app based on events on the blockchain side and vice versa.
Bringing tokens in: You lock tokens in a smart contract on Ethereum (or any EVM chain), specifying the destination Unyt app and agent address. The bridge agent monitors the blockchain, detects your lock, waits for sufficient block confirmations, and then executes a bridge Smart Agreement that credits mirrored tokens to your Unyt address -- all actions that any validating peer can confirm. From there, your tokens live in the Unyt environment -- with access to smart agreements, direct trades, bridging to other Unyt apps, customizable fees, the works.
Taking tokens out: When you want to move value back to blockchain, you initiate a transfer out from the Unyt app, specifying the destination blockchain and address. The bridge agent executes the bridge Smart Agreement and produces a cryptographic coupon -- signed using EVM-native methods (KECCAK-256 hashing and ECDSA signatures). You present that coupon to the blockchain smart contract, which independently verifies the signature and releases your tokens.
Verifiable on Etherscan. Every Ethereum lock and unlock is a standard blockchain transaction, visible on-chain. You can look up the transaction on a service such as Etherscan just like any other Ethereum interaction.
What This Means for Token Projects
This opens up real flexibility for token projects.
Your holders could transact with each other inside a Unyt app -- with custom rules, customizable fees, and smart agreements -- without paying L1 or even L2 gas on every interaction. The L1 tokens stay locked and verifiable on-chain while mirrored tokens move freely in the Unyt environment. And because the environment is composable, you're not limited to just moving tokens around. You can build economic logic on top of them -- automated billing, escrow, multi-party settlements -- whatever your project requires.
Unyt also already supports bridging between Unyt networks. That means two projects that each bridge their tokens into Unyt apps could enable direct purchasing and spending between their communities -- without needing to go through an exchange.
That's increased utility for your token holders without changing supply dynamics. No token mergers, no supply inflation -- just a bigger ecosystem where your currency can be used (and your community's services can be purchased).
Beyond Blockchain
Blockchain is the first external connection, but the bridging pattern is broader than that. Unyt is an accounting framework -- it can reference any externally defined asset, not just blockchain tokens.
The key requirement is that assets backing mirrored units in Unyt need some method, satisfactory to your community, for ensuring they'll be available for redemption. On a blockchain, that's handled by locking tokens in a smart contract -- cryptographically enforced and verifiable on-chain. For other asset types, the traditional finance world offers established mechanisms: escrow accounts, surety bonds, insurance policies, or custodial deposits with auditable reserves. The right approach depends on the asset and the trust requirements of your community.
This Release
This release enables bridging between Unyt apps and EVM blockchains, currently live on the Sepolia testnet with a mock HOT token. Gas costs for the Ethereum lock and unlock transactions have been running at fractions of a penny.
Try it out: Unyt Sandbox v0.51.0
A Question Worth Exploring
What would your project be able to do differently if your token holders could transact in an environment you design -- with your rules, your fee structure, and your own economic logic?
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