TEA Talks: The Portability of TEA
What Do We Mean By Saying TEA Sits on Top of Other Blockchains?
The TEA Project can be thought of as occupying a layer above other blockchains. In that sense, it’s portable and can enter into a symbiotic relationship with any underlying layer one by deploying as a smart contract to the target chain. That’s what we mean when we say that the TEA Project is a dual-layer solution: the first layer can be any host blockchain where the TEA Project runs as a smart contract. The second layer, our TApp execution layer, runs above the host layer1. These two layers are completely independent as explained in the following article:
In the following TEA Talk, Kevin explains how the TEA Project, functioning as a layer2 to other chains, can be thought of as similar to a web browser’s relation to its host computer’s operating system. This is a great benefit to both users and developers who can interact with a dApp and enjoy the same UI look and feel no matter what blockchain it’s deployed on.
Transcript for the TEA Talk
[Olesia]: So in that way in that case can you explain how the TEA Project as a layer two to other chains can be compared to how a popular web browser’s relation to the computer operating systems.
[Kevin]: Yeah that is how people define the layer .. the people define the layer as two kinds of concepts, one on top of another. That means when we change anything in the underlayer, the upper layer will not get affected one way or another. Like anything happening like in the lower level if anything changes in the upper level there will be no effect on the lower level, that is how people define the concept of layers. We can use many examples, like operating systems and browser. Like there are Firefox .. it’s a browser. We also have a different kind of operating system like Windows, MacOS or iOS or Android, they’re all operating systems. Of course there are many other browsers like Brave, Chrome, Opera, they are all browsers. So for any user you can make a combination between those two. For example [if] you have an iPhone you can choose the Firefox, you can choose Chrome, or choose Safari. Now i’m using Android, I can choose, like, Firefox as well or I can use Brave. So in that case, those are just a combination of .. it is also called inter-operated. In that case people can freely choose which one you want in each layer. We can use the same concept, back to the TEA Project .. TEA Project is a mainly on layer two so we do not really care, or we are not like very tightly tied with a a layer one. So we don’t really .. we’re not only running in in Substrate we’re also running on top of Ethereum or any other blockchain in the future. So in that case whoever’s using the existing blockchain you can choose TEA Project as their layer2, it’s not like coupled together / fixed you know have to be a one one to one mapping. No, we’re not. We are freely standing above the layer one blockchain.
[Olesia]: So when you say that layer one can be any blockchain, like would developers be able to influence what kind of blockchain TEA Party is on?
[Kevin]: Well it depends on what developers [want]. Like if you’re an app developer, you don’t really know what happens in layer one. You know nothing about that. Your code will be running in layer 2 which is running inside the TEA Project but the user will see the difference. For example, if you are running an application which supports both Ethereum and Polkadot so you probably can choose whatever wallet you want to use. Like on the browser. For example, Metamask is for Ethereum but if you’re using the Polkadot probably you have to install a Polkadot{.js} extension on your browser because your asset is DOT. [So for the] user [it] will be different. But for developers it’s like it doesn’t matter what is the layer one you don’t know … you don’t really know.
[Olesia]: I understand. So it only matters for users so they can choose to login with the wallet they use most often, for instance.
[Kevin]: I can give you like an example like the operating system and the browser. For example, you’re using Firefox but if you use an iPhone but sometimes you’re using Windows as well. When you get to the computer, with this computer you you can still turn on the computer [and] click the Firefox. But the UI would be very different than the one you’re running on your iPhone, but it’s still Firefox .. you still know how to use it. But it’s two different operating systems. For the developer who makes a web application, for example I make Facebook in the web application, I don’t really care what is the operating system it’s Windows or iPhone I make an application the same. The only difference is the size … proper size of the screen will be different. But i don’t really care [if] you’re running running iOS or Windows. I understand. That is the concept [of] layers: application’s on top, in the middle it’s TEA Project and under that there will be blockchain. So if you go this way you can understand that blockchain is we can see it’s mapping to operating systems: Window, MacOS or iOS, and the TEA Project is in the middle. It’s kind of a browser on top of any blockchain and on top of the browser will be a web application. The developer just makes their own application as long as the application can be running on top of the TEAProject it doesn’t care what is on the underlayer.
[Olesia]: Okay okay, this is a very good explanation.
