Bridges Got Safer

Bridge security improved dramatically after the disaster years. Billions lost to exploits forced the industry to rethink everything. The new generation of bridges looks completely different.

ZK bridges verify state transitions cryptographically. No trusted parties, no multisigs to compromise. Prove on the destination chain that something happened on the source chain. Math replaces trust.

Light client bridges are the other major improvement. Run a light client of the source chain on the destination. Verify headers directly. The security reduces to the source chain's security.

The old trusted bridge model still exists but with better operational security. Multi-party computation for key management. Geographic distribution of signers. Timelock delays for large transfers. Defense in depth.

Bridge risk concerns have diminished significantly. Moving significant value cross-chain is no longer the nail-biter it used to be. The infrastructure matured.

Speed improved alongside security too. Fast finality bridges give you assets in seconds. Optimistic bridges with fraud proofs for the conservative. Users can choose their risk-speed tradeoff.

The remaining frontier is canonical bridges. Every chain having the same bridge standard. We're not there but the consolidation trend points that direction.