What a bank would do — and what you do instead
A bank runs your payments through card networks, ACH and wires, with business-day cut-offs, fees and the ability to dispute a charge. Stablecoin payments settle wallet to wallet in seconds, any day of the week, usually for small fees. In exchange, you take over the bank’s checks: confirming the recipient, choosing the right network, keeping records and accepting that most mistakes cannot be reversed.
How a bridge works
Blockchains cannot read each other directly. A bridge watches one chain, then tells the other chain what happened. In the common “lock and mint” model, your tokens are locked in a contract on chain A, and a wrapped copy is minted on chain B. Your wrapped copy is only as good as the bridge’s locked pool.
Main bridge types
| Type | Who you trust | Example use |
|---|---|---|
| Native / canonical | The chains’ own protocol (e.g. an L2’s official bridge) | Moving ETH to Base or Arbitrum |
| Issuer burn-and-mint | The token issuer | Some stablecoins move this way natively across chains |
| Third-party | A validator set or multisig run by the bridge | Moving between unrelated chains |
Why they get hacked
- Huge pools of locked tokens sit in one contract.
- Small validator sets or multisigs can be compromised.
- Logic that verifies messages between chains is complex and easy to get subtly wrong.
Frequently asked questions
Is bridging the same as swapping?
No. A swap exchanges one token for another on the same chain. A bridge moves a token across chains.
Are official L2 bridges safer?
They generally rely on fewer extra parties, but they have their own design assumptions and withdrawal delays.
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