Blockchain Interoperability through Bridges: A Token Transfer Perspective

The landscape of blockchain has grown rapidly in recent years and also the need for data exchange among different blockchain networks. In particular, blockchain bridges have emerged as a solution to create a way for cross-chain communications, improve blockchain interoperability, and transfer of tokens and economic assets. However, their development is not trivial and requires considering several critical aspectsIn this paper, we overview the bridge technology focusing on one of its main purposes, i.e. token transfer. Then, we investigate the most popular token transfer mechanisms and the main pitfalls and challenges that developers face when implementing bridges.