What is a cross-chain bridge?
A cross-chain bridge
The term cross-chain bridge includes two layers of relationships, that is, the cross-chain is the purpose, and the medium is the bridge. To understand it, use the bridge in life to explain it most vividly. However, the bridge is a necessary means for people to cross the ditch and river. By analogy with the blockchain, it is to extradite the assets of chain A to chain B, which will overcome the consensus barrier to realize the mutual promotion of the ecology of each chain. Domain circulation, in order to play the value of Guangyuan, it must be delivered through the help of cross-chain bridge products.
The initial cross-chain Bridge Smart Contract Development Services in the market is a centralized exchange. For example, if the assets of the public chain are issued, and the realization of circulation requires the exchange to act as a transfer station for encrypted assets, that is, a bridge, the bridge plays the role of keeping funds and transfers this part of the funds. Released on another service agreement, users can withdraw funds in the bridge to the original public chain through a withdrawal request. All in all, as long as native blockchain assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum are applied to any other system, A bridge is required.
Due to the popularity of DeFi, the current popular Cross chain bridge development for custodial services of cryptocurrencies, such as WBTC, RenBTC, sBTC, etc., such BTC anchor coins are issued on non-Bitcoin networks and the price is anchored to the native Bitcoin. A special type of token, users must rely on and trust a certain group of entities to mine and burn this type of BCT. Based on this type of token, it is better to inject sufficient liquidity into DeFi and obtain high returns.
Although there are many types of cross-chain bridges, most of them can only provide cross-chain assets, that is, only Dapp assets with high activity and high popularity are transferred and circulated, including single-organization cross-chain and multi-organization cross-chain, but the essence is not the same. No distinction. The next higher-level upgrade and evolution will be the emergence of an information cross-chain bridge. Now, what the cross-chain project Polkadot needs to achieve is to satisfy both asset cross-chain and information cross-chain, and this will take some time. ChainX, Bifrost, Darwinnia, etc. developed based on Polkadot Substrate will release the value charm far beyond the current cross-chain bridge in the near future.
What is the meaning of the cross-chain bridge?
In addition to playing an the role in asset extradition, cross-chain bridg that can be solve the problem of insufficient performance of the underlying public cross chain. Like the current Polygon sidechain network, it can help transfer transaction throughput from one layer to the off-chain system, and the whole process is easy. The funds are kept through the bridge, releasing a layer of huge transaction pressure. However, Build a cross chain bridge such bridges also have certain drawbacks. They only focus on their own security model, which is almost independent of the blockchain network of the main chain, so they have a certain degree of security risk.
The ideal cross-chain bridge can not only satisfy the exchange of asset information, but also have a high security guarantee, and can ensure that the cross-chain environment is highly transparent and tamper-free, and is compatible with the protocols, applications and transactions of various public chains with higher performance. and other categories of “consensus”, only in accordance with this goal, the “middleware” role of the cross-chain bridge can be recognized by a wider market and used more frequently, and the development of the industry can safely enter the indiscriminate cross-border. The era of chain interaction and circulation.