You Must Construct Additional Bridges!

Can and will bridges take the power back from centralized exchanges? That is the question. But first we must construct additional bridges!

source

As it stands massive amounts of value are transferred between individual users through centralized exchanges. As the landscape has unfolded we've seen companies build and refine exchanges; capturing users and value while taking a cut of all the action.

Most "first generation blockchains" have been built in a siloed fashion where businesses, projects, and their users value is essentially trapped on that blockchain. There are really only a few options for decentralized value transfer with relatively good liquidity, and while some do exist it's the larger centralized exchanges that currently dominant the space.

With Binance doing $22B daily volume nothing else even compares.

The Rise of Cross-Chain Bridges

Times are changing and tech is catching up in an effort to solve this problem. The solution is to build additional bridges. There's an ongoing shift towards composability within DeFi and cross-chain interoperability amongst legit blockchain businesses and projects.

Do you even bridge?

Maybe you've never used a bridge to move coins or NFT's from one blockchain to another but you will eventually, that's a given.

Any blockchain or blockchain project for that matter that's built to last will invest in building bridges between chains where they don't already exist.

Recent examples of this include LEO Bridge that allow users to transfer value between ERC20 to BEP20 (Ethereum to Binance Smart Chain) which is where Cubdefi lives.

Another example related to HIVE is the work that @deathwing is doing to bring us both a @bscbridge and a @polygonbridge, you can read his most recent update here. These bridges will allow value transfer between HIVE, BNB, and MATIC. I think this kind of work should be funded through a proposal but I don't believe it is, none the less I'm sure a witness vote is always appreciated for this work.

These bridges are decentralized and permissionless, this is tech we want to be supporting.

This is the future of the internet of blockchains, and it's also my hope that slowly but surely we can shift some of this early power away from centralized exchanges. One of the keys to this adoption is of course through simple and frictionless UX but we're not quite there yet. That said we're getting closer and closer every day.

As an example of improved UX check out this polygon NFT bridge, yeah an NFT bridge, good things are coming to Polygon!

What is a Cross-Chain Bridge?

Blockchain and their assets are siloed, and difficult to move between blockchains without going through a centralized exchange (middle man). A bridge can do this in a decentralized and permissionless manner through the use of smart contracts.

This interoperability allows the transfer of tokens, data, and even smart-contract instructions between independent platforms. https://decrypt.co

When transferring assets out from one chain the assets are locked up using a smart contract, with equal amounts of these assets being issued into the users wallet on the destination chain. If value is transferred back the new assets are burned and the smart contract releases previously locked up assets.

Must construct additional bridges!

I want to see bridges everywhere! Thankfully for those that use the HIVE blockchain we'll have the ability to bridge between a few different blockchains! This ability to facilitate a flow of value is a massive benefit to all it's users, and to the internet of blockchains as a whole.

Ciao for now,

@agr8buzz