A cross-chain bridge moves assets or messages from one blockchain to another. Users expect to move funds between Ethereum, layer 2s and other chains without thinking about it, but bridges are also where some of the largest losses in crypto have happened. Integrating them well means choosing the right type of bridge for each asset and flow, and handling the waiting, failures and edge cases in your product.
Types of Bridges
- Canonical (native) bridges of each rollup: the most secure route, but withdrawals from optimistic rollups take about a week.
- Liquidity and intent-based bridges such as Across: relayers front the funds on the destination chain within minutes and are repaid later. Fast and widely used, with costs that depend on liquidity.
- Burn-and-mint for stablecoins: Circle's CCTP moves native USDC between supported chains without wrapped tokens.
- Messaging protocols such as LayerZero, Chainlink CCIP, Wormhole and Hyperlane: send arbitrary messages, so contracts on different chains can act together. Each has its own security model.
How We Integrate Bridges
- Choose per flow: native USDC via CCTP, other tokens through canonical or liquidity bridges, contract-to-contract messages through a messaging protocol whose trust model fits the value at stake.
- Design for waiting: show status from start to finish, handle pending transfers after a page reload, and explain wait times honestly.
- Handle failure: retries, refunds, messages that arrive twice or out of order, and destination transactions that run out of gas.
- Limit risk: rate limits and caps on contracts that receive bridged messages, pause switches, and monitoring with alerts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which bridge is the safest?
For moving assets between Ethereum and a rollup, the rollup's canonical bridge. For USDC, CCTP avoids wrapped-token risk. Faster options trade some trust or cost for speed.
Can users bridge without holding gas on the destination chain?
Yes. Many bridges deliver a little native gas, and gasless transactions can remove the need altogether.
Should we build our own bridge?
Almost never. Building on established bridges and protocols is safer; we build the integration, contracts and monitoring around them.
Who owns the code?
Ownership of the source code is set out in the contract, and the code can be fully yours, including documentation and tests.
Part of our layer 2 development and multi-chain tooling. See our USDC-denominated cross-chain trading app for cross-chain flows in practice.
Connect Your Chains
Tell us which chains and assets your users move between. We will design bridging that is fast where it can be and safe where it must be.