Gluers: A Bridge Between the Decentralized and Centralized

Our economic system has been built and run by centralized technologies (emails, APIs, CRMs, e-commerce, ERPs, SQL databases, cloud computing). It changed when decentralized technologies arrived, enabling safe economic interactions with anyone – even strangers you do not trust. You just need to trust the technology.

Many of us love the new decentralized system so much that we believe everything centralized is evil and should be avoided at all costs. We believe in solutions that provide maximum decentralization. This approach pushes us to build novel trustless solutions. But it also prevents us from adopting solutions built on acceptable compromises that make systems easy to use and scale.

A third category that bridges the gap between these two worlds is emerging. We refer to these solutions as “gluers”. Gluers help design an economic system based on tight interaction between decentralized and centralized components, which developers and companies judiciously decide how to mix.

Gluers are logically, architecturally, and politically centralized, just like the traditional IT system. However, unlike a centralized system, a gluer is non-custodial, and cannot steal your funds. They are completely replaceable, and any system is likely to have multiple gluers. This allows for low reliability on one particular gluer.

The Gluing manifesto describes many types of Gluers – order matchers, relayers, gas station networks, watchtowers, etc. Among these state connectors are the gluers with the most promise. This tool performs a match on the lines of ‘If this, then that’, on the blockchain data. The user receives the tool’s output on his web2 apps like email and social media.

HAL.XYZ is a great ecosystem of state connectors, which help users query their blockchain data. Its mission is to merge centralized and decentralized platforms into one single tech landscape by helping the average user automate and query blockchain data — from tracking gas fees and blockchain transactions in real-time to monitoring and triggering notifications across Twitter, Telegram, Discord, Slack and more. It is integrated with Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, and Polygon.

Through its 40+ simple API-integratable “recipes”, any project can consult HAL to resolve time-exhaustive processes by enabling simple automation of updates. It also integrates with the user interface of dApps like Aave, Bancor, and Snapshot. HAL directly addresses issues within the DeFi and blockchain gaming industries, which lack digital asset management solutions for trading, compliance, and governance. It makes the Gluing Manifesto a reality and helps individuals and organizations unleash the potential of their digital assets.

Gluers have become an integral element of the average DeFi user’s ecosystem. They enable the design of an ecosystem based on close interaction between centralized and decentralized components. The reliability of this system is a function of the reliability of its components (trustless components + many gluers + the centralized IT that you trust). The way forward is to legitimize them, and ensure that they are efficient, secure, and replaceable.