🚧 This in-progress document contains information about the design of a cross-chain automation system.

Introduction

The Valence Protocol is a framework designed to help you build trust-minimized applications, called Valence programs, executing across multiple chains. Valence programs are:

• Easy to understand and quick to deploy: a program can be set up with a configuration file and no code.
• Extensible: if we don't support a DeFi integration out of the box, you can write one yourself in a matter of hours!

👉 Example Use-case:

A DAO wants to bridge tokens to another chain and then deposit the tokens into a vault. After a certain date, it wants to allow a governance proposal to trigger unwinding of the position. While the position is active, It may also want to delegate the right to change vault parameters to a specific committee as long as the parameters are within a certain range.

Without Valence Programs, the DAO would have two choices:
Choice 1: Give the tokens to a multisig to execute actions on the DAO's behalf
Choice 2: Write custom smart contracts, and deployed them across multiple chains, to handle the cross-chain token operations.

Valence programs offer a third choice: the DAO does not need to trust a multisig, nor does it need to spend resources writing complex cross-chain logic.

Leveraging the Valence Protocol allows the DAO to rapidly configure and deploy a solution that meets its needs.