ALL ABOUT POLKADOT BRIDGES

Decentralized finance is known for its hassle-free transfer of money without any third-party involvement or bank transaction charges. However, when we talk about the transfer of tokens between two decentralized platforms which use different consensus mechanisms, the cost of gas is astronomical. Cross-chain transactions are processed with hefty gas costs based on the different consensus mechanisms.

To combat the issue of the high costs for gas in cross-chain transactions. Cross-chain bridges were designed. These bridges are vital to boost growth across various blockchains and provide interoperability between assets with high security and enhanced performance of assets.

Due to the increased need for transactions between blockchains operating using different consensus mechanisms bridges across chains have grown in importance. They aid in improving the communication between various peer-to-peer networks at a low cost. In addition to reducing the gas costs, crossing-chain bridges also concentrate on increasing the rate of transactions, which will improve the interactions with the cryptocurrency assets to provide a better user experience. It enhances the value of existing crypto assets and provides an extremely secure and private.

Polkadot uses a variety of strategies to make interoperability easier, one is via its parachains. Although each blockchain isn't an actual parachain, they do require a secure method for communication to other chains. This is the point where Polkadot bridges are used and provide a method for the exchange of crypto-assets and transactions between different platforms with a different consensus system such as Ethereum, Avalanche, Cardano, and BSC.

What are blockchain bridges?

Blockchain bridges are the most crucial technologies to facilitate interoperability between different blockchain platforms, which have various community structures, consensus mechanisms as well as governance structures. Blockchain bridges eliminate the differences by offering an integrated solution that works with both blockchains to ensure effective interoperability. It assists by connecting two blockchains that may not be considered parachains but wish to interact with one another. The exchange between these two blockchains is comprised of token transfers, crypto-asset transactions as well as arbitrary data transfers. Blockchain bridges eliminate the gap by offering an integrated solution that works with both blockchains, allowing for seamless interoperation.

There are various blockchain bridge designs and these designs are divided into two basic categories: centralized/ trusted/ federated bridges and decentralized/trustless bridges. This article will concentrate on trustless bridges that are decentralized within this post. Trustless bridges don't have any central authority that can validate cross-chain communications. They instead operate by using mathematical codes that operate in a decentralized, autonomous manner.

What is a Polkadot bridge?

Polkadot was originally designed to be the basic structure to implement interoperability, scalability, and security for the cross-chain network. It enabled multiple layer-1 parachains within a single ecosystem. Polkadot is also unique in its feature that lets a parachain, as well as any other non-parachains, communicate. It achieves this through the use of blockchain bridges. Since it is the case that the Polkadot network was created to eliminate mediation between various P2P networks blockchain bridges are used mostly for secure cross-chain interactions.

Let's now explore Polkadot bridges using an illustration. Imagine a decentralized marketplace for an insurance company. One option is to create custom-designed parachains that function as a market for insurers' traders. Let's assume that Polkadot owns an oracle parachain that carries external data onto the chain, along with the Internet of Things (IoT) parachain which collects all data that is gathered from offline IoT devices.

In the event that you've bought an insurance policy for the delay in flight and the insurance policy could be written in a way that it will be able to pay in the event that the oracle's underlying parachain is able to confirm that there were delays in the flight, and the IoT parachain confirms that you arrived at the airport at the time you specified. In the event that the insurance's parachain gets signals from the oracle and IoT parachains, it can use the blockchain bridge to start an exchange using cryptocurrency that is transferred from the account of the insurance company to the account of the policy. This is the way bridging can facilitate interoperability.

What types of bridges have been built in the Polkadot ecosystem by various networks?

The specifics of The Polkadot blockchain bridges funded by Web3 Foundation Grants can be found as the following:

Interlay

Interlay is an Interlay platform that has constructed an untrustworthy link that connects Bitcoin as well as Polkadot. It is currently in the beta testnet stage. The bridge will allow users to mint assets that are backed by Bitcoin to the ratio of 1:1 using the Polkadot platform. The minted assets will be referred to as PolkaBTC.

PolkaBTC can be used by any app or parachain in the Polkadot ecosystem as a kind of native asset.

PolkaBTC assists in unlocking the BTC liquidity that is needed for Polkadot's centralized finance. However, in all of this, the PolkaBTC makes use of the XCLAIM protocol. This makes the bridge a trusted and censorship-resistant intermediary medium.

Snowfork

Another platform, Snowfork has created a general-purpose bridge that connects the Ethereum blockchain and Polkadot. The bridge is designed to transfer ETH assets, and ERC20 assets as well as the random data from the Ethereum chain onto the Polkadot chain. Alongside the asset transfers, The general-purpose bridge created by Snowfork can also allow cross-chain smart contracts to be called.

Darwinia

Darwinia is a network that is known by its name as the bridge hub across chains. It has developed an unrestricted and non-custodial bridge protocol that is cost-effective and efficient decentralization of cross-chain tokens. Darwinia's bridging protocols also focus on cross-chain exchanges other than cryptocurrency-asset transfer. The bridge incorporates technology such as positive verification mechanisms.

Centrifuge

Centrifuge in partnership with ChainSafe created a bridge known as ChainSafe and Centrifuge developed a bridge called ChainBridge that is flexible, asset-agnostic, and multi-directional in its nature. The ChainBridge lets users of the Centrifuge platform move non-fungible and fungible tokens across chains. ChainBridge being an open-source project aids other teams that use the platform to build bridges to bridge the gap between their respective projects.

ChainX

ChainX is a cryptocurrency assets exchange platform, which intends to create bridges between various networks. They have also implemented an interface between BTC to a chain based on substrates. Based on the bridge's design of ChainX the bridge can be utilized by validators who are part of PoS. PoS chain's consensus. ChainX and also manage the BTC multi-signature wallet.

Bitfrost

Bitfrost is another company that built bridges for EOS networks. The bridge allows the cross-chain transfer of assets in a secure method by implementing small nodes that are on the chain in conjunction with the Merkle tree verification.

Now that we're aware of the various types of bridges that are being built in the Polkadot ecosystem, it's about time to look at the basic methods used to bridge blockchains in the next section.

What are the different blockchain bridge methods?

Interoperability between blockchains is ensured by the unique Bridging technology. Bridging technology is connected to the Polkadot platform. It allows Polkadot's Polkadot platform compatible with other blockchain platforms like Cardano, XDC, Ethereum, and many more.

There are several specific methods to construct a Polkadot bridge, which are uncentralized and trustworthy in its nature, as follows:

Pallets to help bridge

For the chain based on substrates, bridge pallets can be found to bridge the cross-chain communication gap. For example, Kusama \<\> Polkadot bridge because both networks are parachains, and both utilize the same substrate.

A substrate pellet is utilized to receive messages from the Polkadot ecosystem from a non-parachain system. The idea of a substrate pellet can be implemented on Polkadot either as a form of a system-level parachain or as the parachain of an organization called a community.

For non-substrate independent chains, bridge contracts are employed for bridging the gap between cross-chain interactions as described in the following section.

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