Beyond Bridges: How Is Web3 Evolving Its Cross-Chain Commerce?

As bridges continue to experience massive hacks, could there be a better solution to the interoperability challenges across the blockchain industry?

Over $85 million worth of cryptocurrencies were compromised via hacks on bridging services in the first half of 2024, according to Hacken’s Web 3 Q1 and Q2 reports. While this is a sharp fall from the full-year losses across bridging services in 2023 – $337.72 million – the security concerns around bridges are persistent. Could there be better solutions to blockchain interoperability and improved cross-chain technologies than bridges? And if so, how do these technologies aim to solve the issues facing bridging services?

In this piece, we delve deeper into the problems that traditional blockchain bridges face, the rise of new and improved cross-chain technologies and how they enhance blockchain interoperability and communication.

Why Bridging Services May Soon Become Obsolete

Blockchain bridges, or application-specific cross-chain bridges, were introduced in 2021 at the height of the DeFi boom, enabling communication between blockchains. These protocols are designed to facilitate the transfer of assets and information from one chain to another. They were created to solve the issue of interoperability and the siloed nature of blockchains.

Over the years, chain-specific bridges have emerged as a vital solution to value transfer and communication between blockchains. These protocols function by locking users’ tokens on the source chain and then minting intermediate tokens on the destination chain. However, bridges have proven fragile, as explained above, with major hacks and theft of users’ funds hindering the solutions they provide.

Adding to hacks and security concerns, application-specific bridges also suffer from the following challenges:

1. Security concerns: One of the biggest challenges that cross-chain bridges face is the susceptibility to hacks and theft. Whether custodial or non-custodial, bridges have been a ripe target for hackers in the blockchain space. Since 2022, bridging services have lost nearly $2.5 billion in customers’ funds due to hacks, punctuated with Ronin Bridge’s $625 million loss in March 2022. Whether it’s a target on the centralized custodial services or a smart contract exploit, bridges will continue to suffer from hackers.
2. Time-consuming: Secondly, using bridges requires users to wait for a time before they withdraw their tokens back to the source chain. For example, using the Arbitrum bridge will take a user roughly one week to get their tokens back to the source chain, without using a third-party service. Using a third-party service could take less time but comes with its security risks.
3. UX challenges: Additionally, the current bridges are a bother for new non-seasoned crypto users. For example, imagine a user who wishes to use a DApp on Solana using SOL tokens but owns USDC on Ethereum. The user would have to potentially wrap and unwrap assets, download another wallet native to Solana, and find a market for the wrapped tokens to successfully use SOL tokens on Solana. These multiple processes use gas fees and, at times, could be expensive for the user.

The complexity and security concerns surrounding current application-specific bridges make it difficult for the innovation to be widely accepted. Bridges can only be a partial solution to the growing Web 3 interoperability challenges. But for the growing blockchain and DeFi landscape, cross-chain solutions not only need to be efficient but also allow seamless capital flow for all users.

Zeus Network, a bridgeless platform utilizing the Solana blockchain aims to offer better solutions for interoperability between blockchains. The platform leverages Solana for its lightning-quick, affordable, and reliable qualities as well as its Zeus Layer, a pluggable and programmable network of nodes on the Solana Virtual Machine (SVM), to make liquidity available on all blockchain networks – the source and destination chains.

The Rise of Bridgeless Cross-Chain Technology

Zeus Network is a pioneer in bringing bridgeless cross-chain technology to the DeFi landscape. The restricted interoperability of DApps with particular blockchain networks results in fragmented liquidity, less innovation and less-than-ideal user experiences. Zeus Network aims to solve these challenges by providing a permissionless and bridgeless layer, starting with a connection between Bitcoin and Solana. The platform leverages the robust security of Bitcoin and the effectiveness, speed and low transaction fees of Solana to allow DApps on Solana to access the vast liquidity pool of Bitcoin.

Developers can create a wide range of applications on Zeus Network and link them to Solana and Bitcoin, unlocking a world of possibilities,  from DeFi apps to secure and efficient financial services. Zeus has developed a monolithic architecture that consolidates execution, data availability, and consensus within a single framework, enabling seamless integration and a unified user experience throughout its ecosystem.

So how does the bridgeless architecture design work?

First, chain-agnostic transactions (either on Bitcoin or Solana) are proposed by Zeus Nodes and then submitted to Zeus program states. The transactions are then signed and aggregated on the Zeus Layer via the Zeus Programming Library (ZPL), a set of SVM programs built on Solana Virtual Machine. ZPL is a verifiable interface for developers to build on top of Zeus Network. The signed transactions are then broadcast to the destination chain.

To protect the transactions and secure cross-chain communication, honest Zeus Nodes can simply submit fraud proofs to slash malicious ones. This ensures that cross-chain communication remains secure.

Unlike bridges, Zeus Network ensures no party can game the system, hack into centralized custody, or exploit the smart contract as you can be slashed. Additionally, the process of transferring assets from Bitcoin or Solana is simple and fast, with every step conducted on one platform.

Final Words

The need for better interoperability and cross-chain technologies is crucial to the overall growth of the blockchain industry. While traditional blockchain bridges have played a crucial role in enabling cross-chain communication, their vulnerabilities and inefficiencies highlight the need for more advanced solutions. The emergence of bridgeless platforms like Zeus Network represents a significant leap forward in blockchain interoperability.

Streamlined, efficient, fast, and low-cost alternatives such as Zeus Network could be the key to unlocking dormant liquidity across blockchain networks. This could be the rise of a potentially new standard for the future of decentralized finance and cross-chain technology.