What is a bridge
The token does not travel, a message does
When you "move" USDC from Ethereum to Arbitrum, the token itself goes nowhere. The bridge locks or burns it on the source network and mints or pays out the same amount on the destination. The whole job of a bridge is to reliably tell the second network that this really happened on the first.
The weakest point is the middle step: who verifies the message and how much you have to trust them. Almost every major hack happened right there.
History
How it all started
- 2013 – 2016
Ideas before bridges
In 2013 Tier Nolan describes the atomic swap, an exchange between two networks without an intermediary. In 2014 Blockstream publishes its sidechains paper, and in 2016 come the whitepapers of Cosmos and Polkadot, two projects designed as an "internet of blockchains".
- 2018 – 2019
Bitcoin on Ethereum
In January 2019 WBTC launches: BitGo holds real bitcoin and a 1:1 token is issued on Ethereum. It is the first bridge used at scale, even though it relies on a single custodian.
- 2020 – 2021
DeFi summer and an explosion of networks
Polygon, Avalanche, BSC and the first L2s arrive, and with them their own bridges plus general bridges such as Multichain (Anyswap), Wormhole, Hop, Synapse and Across. In February 2021 Cosmos switches on IBC, the first standard protocol for communication between networks.
- 2022
The year of hacks
Ronin (about $625m), Wormhole (about $325m), Nomad (about $190m) and BNB Bridge (about $570m) show that bridges are the most vulnerable part of crypto. The same year Stargate launches on LayerZero, and aggregators such as LI.FI and Jumper appear.
- 2023
Native instead of wrapped
Multichain collapses in July 2023 and locks user funds. Circle launches CCTP: USDC is burned on the source and minted natively on the destination, with no wrapped tokens and no liquidity pools anyone could drain.
- 2024 – 2026
Intents and solvers
The user states what they want to receive, and a solver pays them on the destination from its own funds within seconds and settles on the source later. Across and Relay, both built on this model, now handle almost two thirds of the volume. In 2025 Tether launches USDT0, USDT that crosses networks without wrapping.
Amounts and dates in the history are from general knowledge, not from DefiLlama.
Top 10
Top 10 bridges by volume in the last 30 days, and where Jumper stands
Relay and Across together move almost 16 billion dollars a month, more than all other bridges combined. Third is USDT0, which carries a single token. With $812m Jumper would be seventh, but it is an aggregator: it routes users through these same bridges, so it is not counted in the total or the shares.
| # | Bridge | Type | 30 days | 7 days | 24 h | Share (30 d) |
|---|
Source: DefiLlama Bridges, as of 8 Oct 2026, sorted by volume over the last 30 full days. Share is of the $24.85bn total across all bridges DefiLlama tracks. DefiLlama does not currently show Wormhole, LayerZero or Circle CCTP in its bridge table, so they are not listed. Jumper's volume is from DefiLlama's bridge aggregator page (Jumper, LI.FI powered); LI.FI itself does another $1.2bn in 30 days through other apps.
Types
Six ways a bridge can work
Canonical bridge
The network's own official bridge, e.g. the Arbitrum, Optimism or Polygon PoS Bridge. As secure as the network itself, but withdrawing from an L2 to Ethereum can take up to 7 days.
Lock and mint
The token is locked on the source and a wrapped version is minted on the destination. If someone drains the locked tokens, the wrapped ones lose their backing. That is how Ronin and Wormhole fell.
Liquidity pools
Each network has a pool of the same token; you deposit into one and are paid out of the other. Fast, and you get the real token. Example: Stargate.
Intent and solver
A solver pays you right away from its own funds and takes on the waiting risk itself. The fastest model and by far the most used today. Examples: Relay, Across, Mayan.
Issuer burn and mint
The issuer itself burns the token on one network and mints it on another, so there are no wrapped versions. Examples: Circle CCTP and Gateway for USDC, USDT0 for USDT.
Aggregator
Not a bridge but a search engine: it compares quotes from several bridges and picks the best one. Examples: LI.FI and Jumper, covered on the next page.
Hacks
The biggest bridge hacks
A bridge holds large amounts of locked tokens in one place, which makes it a favourite target. According to Chainalysis, about 2 billion dollars was stolen from bridges in 2022, most of all crypto stolen that year.
| Bridge | When | Stolen | What went wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
| Poly Network | Aug 2021 | ≈ $611m | Contract bug; the attacker later returned almost everything. |
| Ronin | Mar 2022 | ≈ $625m | Stolen keys of 5 of 9 validators. |
| BNB Bridge | Oct 2022 | ≈ $570m | A forged proof allowed minting 2 million BNB; most of it was stopped. |
| Wormhole | Feb 2022 | ≈ $325m | Signature check bypassed on Solana; Jump Crypto covered the loss. |
| Nomad | Aug 2022 | ≈ $190m | Bug in an upgrade; hundreds of addresses copied the attack. |
| Multichain | Jul 2023 | ≈ $125m | The keys were held by the CEO, who was arrested in China. |
From general knowledge, rounded; exact amounts vary by source.
The bridges leading by volume today mostly do not hold large pools of locked tokens: solvers pay out of their own funds, and issuers such as Circle and Tether burn and mint the token themselves.
Sources
DefiLlama Bridges · LI.FI: bridges and the cross-chain ecosystem
Volumes: DefiLlama, last full day, 7 and 30 full days before 8 Oct 2026.