How XCM will actually be used with XCMP

[matt]

@brad.olson.587

@shawntabrizi Here it’s worth looking into the latency solutions used by the traditional financial system and perhaps adapting them to our purposes. I agree that we run into physics constraints when low latency absolute finality is desired, but there’s still room to reduce latency if we substitute insured finality for absolute.

I think about the latency in the traditional financial services system as evidence that instant finality isn’t necessary for many use cases. I’ve frequently heard the argument from banks (in the US) that much of the latency is desired (for fraud prevention).

@brad.olson.587

I envision a smart contract layer that mathematically models the risk of a particular asset transfer or cross chain procedure call. The contract then adds a small fee to the transaction in return for guaranteeing its successful completion. This could be combined with batching of transactions where relevant to make things even more efficient.

I think this is effectively Visa / Mastercard, who process transactions instantly while waiting for responses from multiple layers of banks. They charge ~3% of most transactions.