Bridging assets in the multi-chain future
Heyo,
Jules here, from Cyfrin.
This week, we’re diving deep into the multi-chain world 🌍.
This week
🌉 How do blockchain bridges work?
📆 Security news going on this week
✍🏼 Top dev tools, security firms, and learning opportunities for 2024
⭐️ Ecosystem rockstar shoutout!
Blockchain Bridges
Over $2 billion dollars were stolen through bridge exploits in 2022.
🤷🏻♀️ What are bridges? Blockchain bridges facilitate the transfer of assets and data across different blockchain platforms. They act as facilitators for interoperability between chains, extending the utility of (dApps) and assets beyond the confines of a single network.
🥷🏻 How do they work?
User wants to transfer x assets from chain A to chain B
User initiates the transfer on chain A (say, through a bridge dApp), adding the chain B address that should receive funds
The bridge locks the assets on chain A (temporarily removes them from circulation) and sends a signal to chain B verifying the assets have been locked and new ones should be minted on chain B
Chain B mints an equivalent amount of the assets or a wrapped version of them. Then allocates them in the chain B address you specified in Step 2.
💪🏽 5 ways to prevent bridge hacks:
Verify the asset-locking mechanism
Choose bridges that are not centralized
Be careful with federated bridges, if a significant portion of the nodes is compromised
Check for replay attack and malicious transactions to illicitly mint or unlock assets.
Get an audit
— Read more about blockchain bridges here!
Security news
🔐 [Today, Feb 8th. 4pm UTC] Twitter Space: Web3 Security for Protocols - a peek into how protocols today are thinking about security in 2024.
🎙️ Introducing Updraft subtitles! You can now learn smart contract development in 7 languages - check if yours is here!
🕵🏻♀️ Want to get real-life experience auditing contracts? Join the upcoming CodeHawks First Flight contest on finding soulmates on-chain.
Related articles
🥷🏻 Want to become a smart contract auditor? Here is how to get started!
⚡️ These are the top Web3 tools for developers in 2024.
🕵🏻♀️ Here are the top 10 smart contract auditing firms, and how to determine which is best for your protocol
Ecosystem rockstars ⭐️
This week, we want to give a shoutout to @n0kto!
@n0kto wrote CodeHawks’ first community-based First Flight: the Soulmate protocol 💖.
First flights are contests for new auditors to get real-life auditing experience and feedback.
Thank you @n0kto for helping us upskill more auditors in the industry!
Let us know what you thought of this new version of the newsletter here!
Sending lots of cyber love,
Jules 🤸🏻