The category of protocols that move assets and data between distinct blockchains, treated collectively as connective infrastructure between ledgers.
Semantic Classification
Content
- Cross-chain bridges describe the set of protocols that interconnect separate ledgers, enabling assets and messages to pass between ecosystems that have no shared consensus. They underpin multi-chain applications by letting liquidity and state move across network boundaries.
- Designs vary in how they verify events on a source chain, spanning external validator committees, optimistic schemes with challenge periods, and light-client approaches that verify source-chain consensus directly. The concentration of locked value and the difficulty of securing cross-domain verification make this category a recurring source of large exploits.