As the demand for Web 3.0 technologies based on different blockchains continues to grow, the need for interaction between blockchains also increases. Typically, Dapps on the same blockchain platform can only communicate with each other and not with a different blockchain platform. This has spurred the development of Cross Chain projects to connect different blockchains. So, what is Cross Chain, what are the advantages and disadvantages of Cross Chain, and which Cross Chain projects are promising, let’s see the detailed information right below.
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What is Cross Chain? Top Potential Cross Chain Projects 2025
What is Cross Chain?
Without Cross Chain, projects from different layer-1 blockchains would not be able to easily exchange with each other. Instead, users first have to convert the coin/token of one blockchain platform to fiat currency along with a conversion fee. Then, they need to use that converted fiat money to buy another desired cryptocurrency and again incur additional fees and time loss.
What are the Benefits of Cross Chain?
Cross Chain significantly helps in enabling the interoperability of blockchain and has some basic benefits of it which can be listed below:
Cross Chain helps connect independent blockchain networks
One of the best advantages of Cross Chain is that it allows for effective communication and strong connections between different blockchain networks. It facilitates the transfer of assets and token swaps without worrying about the incompatibility of blockchains. Additionally, it also allows users to transfer information such as assets, transaction receipts, and smart contracts.
Cross Chain enhances scalability
Cross Chain enables better scalability compared to current mechanisms on blockchain. Since this technology allows users to interact with different blockchain networks, it can leverage the speeds associated with multiple blockchains to improve scalability.
Cross Chain enhances data flow and token transfer
Under the current mechanism, users need to send data from the source chain. After the validators receive this data, relayers transfer the data to the target chain. However, with cross-chain technology, transactions are verified immediately upon completion and reach their destination right after the verification process is completed. In this way, it streamlines the entire process and makes data exchange and transfer seamless.
Cross Chain reduces the monopoly of large blockchains
Cross-chain technology also helps create stability in the market by reducing the monopoly of large blockchain platforms. For example, Bitcoin and Ethereum are the leading names in the world of cryptocurrency, accounting for over 70% of the total market share.
This leaves little room in the cryptocurrency market for new projects, however, thanks to Cross Chain, new blockchain projects can test their strategies and create a position in the current competition.
Cross Chain can help in such situations as it builds an ecosystem where the transaction processes will focus on all networks equally. The focus will not only be on some major blockchain networks but also on others, thus Cross Chain can create a fairer scenario.
What are the Challenges for Cross Chain?
Cross-chain bridges have recently become a lucrative target for hackers with continuous attacks on various bridges between different blockchains such as Ronin, Wormhole, Horizon… with the value of assets stolen amounting to hundreds of millions of USD in each attack.
Moreover, cross-chain technology is still very new and not yet perfected. The individual blockchains themselves are still in the process of development, gradually being fully built, so the capability of current cross-chain solutions is limited to allowing token swaps.
Many cross-chain bridges depend on the logic of smart contracts, not the security of the blockchain. Therefore, cross chains using poorly written smart contracts are very vulnerable to hacking, posing greater risks for users.
The $320 million hack on Wormhole (a Solana – Ethereum bridge) exploited a loophole in the smart contract that allowed the hacker to extract 120,000 wETH on Solana without sending any ETH tokens. In another attack on the Ethereum – BSC bridge of Qubit Finance, the hacker was able to take away 206,809 BNB worth $80 million on the BSC chain without sending any ETH.
In reality, some cross-chain platforms that were attacked had to beg the hackers to return the stolen money. However, relying on unscrupulous individuals to return their loot is akin to expecting to see cheese on the moon.
Comparing Cross Chain with Multi-chain
Cross Chain is used for the purpose of transferring assets from one blockchain to another, while Multi-chain refers to projects operating on several different chains.
An easy example to understand the difference between Cross Chain and Multi-chain is:
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Cross-chain: similar to a company transporting goods from one country to another.
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Multi-chain: similar to multinational companies with offices in many different countries.
Promising Cross Chain Projects
Before moving on to the promising cross-chain projects, let’s look at a list of projects related to the cross-chain field, including infrastructure projects and applications developed on top.
Protocols that support the movement of assets from one chain to another or provide infrastructure to implement this feature are classified as cross-chain projects.
Binance Cross Chain Bridge
Binance Bridge is a popular cross-chain bridge aimed at facilitating interoperability between Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain (BSC). Binance Bridge allows people to convert their cryptocurrency tokens from Binance Chain and BSC compatible formats. Currently, Binance Bridge supports token conversion of ERC-20 along with selected currencies on other networks including XRP, LINK, ATOM, DOT, XTZ, and ONT.
When users request to move tokens, the original tokens are wrapped and converted into BEP-2 and BEP-20 formats. Once the conversion process is completed, these tokens can be used as native BEP-20 tokens for staking and swapping between different protocols within the BSC ecosystem.
The conversion process is actually quite simple and only takes a few minutes to bridge between networks. Moreover, this bridge does not charge transaction fees. Users are only required to pay gas fees on the origin and destination chains. The Bridge interface is open to any user, even those without a Binance account, and is one of the most popular options for transferring assets from Ethereum to the Binance Network.
Portal Token Bridge (formerly Wormhole Bridge)
After a hack of over 300 million USD, the Wormhole bridge created a new cross-chain and renamed it as Portal Token Bridge. It is one of the popular cross-chain bridges in the industry. Initially built on the Solana Network to transfer tokens between Solana and Ethereum, Portal is now a multi-lane network connecting 7 top DeFi blockchains including Solana, Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, Terra, Avalanche, and Oasis…
Following the hack in February 2022, the project made significant modifications to prevent hacker attacks, and Wormhole has promised to compensate those who lost money, hoping that this bridge will not be attacked again in the future.
Portal Token Bridge stands out for its extremely low transaction fees, only 0.0001 USD per transfer, and its user-friendly interface for newcomers.
Avalanche Cross Chain Bridge
The Avalanche Bridge is a two-way cross-chain bridge between the Avalanche network and Ethereum, facilitating seamless token transfers between the two networks. It uses ChainSafe’s ChainBridge and enables two-way transfers of both cryptocurrency tokens and NFTs. Users wanting to start cross-chain swapping and use ERC-20 tokens in decentralized applications on Avalanche, can send and lock their assets in the ChainBridge smart contract.
After the assets are deposited, a proposal is created and sent to Bridge’s relayers. The Relayers (Protofire, Hashquark, POA Network, Avascan) responsible for securing the bridge compare the proposal with Avalanche’s data and approve or reject the proposal through a voting process. Once the proposal is approved, equivalent tokens are minted on the Avalanche Network and can be used in various protocols.
The additional voting process makes Avalanche one of the safest cryptocurrency bridges for transferring assets and it has a TVL of billions of USD.
=> See more: What is Avalanche (AVAX)?
Tezos Wrap Protocol Bridge
Developed by DeFi development company Bender Labs, the Tezos Wrap Protocol is a two-way bridge between the Ethereum and Tezos networks. The protocol allows users to wrap their ERC-20 tokens into FA2 tokens that can be used in the Tezos ecosystem. Through the Wrap protocol, ERC-20 token holders can benefit from Tezos’s high network speed, reasonable transaction costs, and scalability.
The protocol also supports wrapping ERC-721 tokens. This means users can seamlessly move their NFTs between the two networks. Wrap helps bring cross-chain assets into the Tezos network and also creates new use cases for these wrapped tokens. They can be used for Yield Farming and provide liquidity for wToken/XTZ pairs.
Fantom AnySwap Bridge
The Fantom AnySwap Bridge is a two-way solution that allows cross-chain asset transfers between the Ethereum Network and the EVM-compatible Fantom Network. The Fantom Network is highly scalable, faster, and cheaper compared to the Ethereum Network, and ERC-20 token holders can benefit from its signature features.
At its core, AnySwap is a multi-chain liquidity solution and it uses liquidity pools deployed on different blockchain networks to facilitate the connection of assets. This system facilitates the token transfer to Fantom from Ethereum, Avalanche, Polygon, and Binance Smart Chain.
The AnySwap Bridge currently has a TVL of nearly 2 billion USD and is renowned for its user-friendly interface.
Through this, we hope you have understood what is Cross Chain as well as the promising Cross Chain projects that you might consider. If you have any more questions related to Cross Chain, feel free to leave a comment for an answer within 24 hours.
