These Bridges Open the Cross-chain Ecosystem to Everyone

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Bridges have proven to be one of the most important aspects of many cryptocurrency users’ toolkits — allowing them to access the full breadth of the cross-chain blockchain landscape without unnecessary hurdles.

As arguably the most efficient way to move assets from one chain to another, bridges are primarily used by individuals and businesses that want to interact with DApp and projects across a variety of different blockchains, but also want to maximize their capital efficiency. They allow these users to easily move their assets between chains, so they can be used as and when needed. 

These are particularly useful when users are either unwilling or unable to use centralized platforms to exchange their assets from one chain to another. They’re generally cheaper too since they avoid the need to pay trading fees on exchange platforms.

But not all bridges are built equal and the bridge landscape is currently dominated by a handful of platforms that are helping to power the new cross-chain cryptocurrency economy. Here, we take a look at the three frontrunners in the rapidly evolving bridge landscape.

cBridge

Celer’s cBridge has recently made a name for itself among bridge solutions, thanks to the sheer number of platforms it supports.

With support for most major chains, including Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, Avalanche, Fantom, and even Huobi ECO Chain, it’s by far the best-specced bridge platform. It’s also unique in that it allows true any-to-any transfers, ensuring users can move their assets between any of its supported chains.

Besides being gas optimized to minimize the costs involved in bridging, it’s also among the few bridges to support layer-2 scaling chains — like Arbitrum and Optimism.

The platform supports most major stablecoins as well as popular cryptocurrencies like Ethereum (ETH), Wrapped BTC (WBTC), and Celer Network (CELR).

One of its standout features is its simplicity. It makes moving assets from one chain to another an incredibly intuitive task, ensuring even beginners can begin taking advantage of different blockchains with ease. This is part of the reason why it has seen its transaction volume skyrocket in recent weeks. 

Thanks to the huge array of blockchains supported and the massive liquidity, odds are cBridge is the only bridge you’ll ever need. Plus, cBridge v2 is soon to be released — bringing with it a vast array of added features and improvements.

Binance Bridge

Mostly known for its wildly popular centralized exchange platform, Binance offers an entire ecosystem of products, most of which relate to trading and investing in cryptocurrencies.

One of Binance’s lesser-known products is its bridge platform, which can be used to easily source liquidity for assets across multiple chains. 

The platform is one of the longest-running decentralized bridges and can be used without a Binance account.

It stands out from other bridges in that features support for one of the largest arrays of cryptocurrencies of any bridge — including dozens of popular cryptocurrencies like USDT, BTC, and ETH. It also supports a handful of popular blockchains, including Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, TRON, and Solana.

Notably, the Binance Bridge is one of the few bridges to support Binance Chain (not to be confused with Binance Smart Chain).

But it’s not without its limitations. The platform does enforce a daily quota for each address — though this is generally upwards of USD 100k in asset equivalent. 

Allbridge

Allbridge is another rapidly up-and-coming bridge platform. As its name suggests, it’s a platform designed to allow users to bridge their assets between any blockchain.

Right now, the platform supports a handful of popular chains, including Ethereum, Solana, and Avalanche. It’s also one of the few bridges that support Celo.

It supports a wide range of assets including regular cryptocurrencies, stablecoins, and a variety of popular DeFi tokens. These can be bridged to and from any supported chain in just a few clicks.

In total, more than USD 1.5 billion worth of assets has been moved across chains through the platform.

Allbridge charges a standard 0.3% fee on each transfer, which does make it one of the more expensive bridge platforms operating today. However, it is possible to reduce the effective fee by staking the platform’s native utility token known as ABR.

The platform has been audited by leading security firm Hacken and features a fast-paced development schedule that sees new chains added regularly.