1. What Is a Cross-Chain Bridge?
It is infrastructure for moving assets between different blockchains. A bridge is needed to use Ethereum's ETH on Solana.
2. Major Bridges
- Wormhole — Supports 20+ chains and is described here as the largest
- LayerZero — Omnichain messaging
- Orbiter Finance — Low-cost transfers between layer-2 networks
- Official bridges — The official Arbitrum and Optimism bridges
3. Bridge Security Risks
🚨 Examples of Bridge Hacks
• Ronin Bridge — $625 million in 2022
• Wormhole — $320 million in 2022
• Nomad Bridge — $190 million in 2022
• Bridges are among the DeFi infrastructure with the greatest exposure to hacking
4. Safer Usage
- Use only official bridge URLs
- Test with a small amount first
- For large amounts, transferring through an exchange may be safer