Cover image source: X @OrlandoG85
Snowbridge is officially live!
Snowbridge is a newly launched bridge that connects Polkadot and Ethereum, aiming to achieve a fully trustless design without involving multi-signature or third parties. This is a significant innovation for interoperability within the Polkadot ecosystem.
Snowbridge is one of the longest-running and most complex public projects in the Polkadot ecosystem, apart from the Parity project, and many teams have been eagerly awaiting its launch.
We are delighted to announce that Snowbridge is now live on Polkadot! This is a tremendous effort for our team, Parity, and many others in the ecosystem.
The focus of the first version is to transfer ETH and ERC20 assets from Ethereum to Polkadot and vice versa. We are still waiting for multiple parachains to deploy their integrations and for wallet support to add Snowbridge assets, but these are expected to be completed soon.
If you are an enthusiastic early user, you can now try it out, but there are a few important things to note:
Talisman, SubWallet, and Nova wallet are developing support for Snowbridge. Until then, you may not see the Snowbridge asset balance in your wallet app on AssetHub. Don’t worry, you can view the balance and make transfers on the Snowbridge website, and SubWallet support should be available in a few days.
Over the next two weeks, we will conduct preliminary scalability testing as part of a wider public release. During this process, we still have a backup management feature in place for upgrades and recovery in case of any errors. After two weeks, we will remove this feature and achieve full trustlessness.
Afterward, all control and upgrades will be done through Polkadot’s governance track using our cross-chain governance.
Try it out:
https://app.snowbridge.network/
What is the significance of Snowbridge?
Snowbridge is a crucial upgrade for the Polkadot ecosystem. Currently, all Ethereum assets in the Polkadot ecosystem flow through bridges that rely on third-party signatures, i.e., bridge or governance signatures from private keys, token holders, or validators, which do not match the sets of validators in Polkadot and Ethereum.
Currently, all parachains and dApps in the Polkadot ecosystem that receive these assets are limited in their trust model due to the presence of these third parties, rather than relying entirely on the security of the relay chain in Polkadot. This undermines Polkadot’s value proposition.
Snowbridge’s model is trustless, relying only on signatures from first-party Polkadot and Ethereum validators, as well as transparent, permissionless, and auditable on-chain logic. It operates on BridgeHub, a system parachain that derives security entirely from the relay chain and is directly governed by DOT tokens.
The launch of Snowbridge also represents a significant growth opportunity for Polkadot as we unlock a new wave of potential assets that interact with Ethereum. We hope to see more cross-chain system interoperability and experimentation built on Snowbridge in the coming years.
What’s next?
Snowbridge also supports arbitrary message passing, not just asset transfers. We will enable this feature in the coming months, once this initial version is fully matured.
Once live, you can expect to bridge DOT and other native Polkadot assets to Ethereum, as well as support full XCM transactions between Polkadot and Ethereum. Snowbridge enables the interface between Polkadot XCM and Ethereum smart contract calls, unlocking true cross-chain applications.
We will also soon release a governance proposal outlining the long-term future of the project and ultimately finalize our long-term funding plan, so stay tuned!
If you’ve made it this far, you might be wondering if there’s any news about liquidity plans for the bridge. Currently, we don’t have anything to share, but related discussions are ongoing.
Any other news?
If you’re interested in diving deeper into the project and gaining a more detailed understanding of what a fully trustless means, please check out the following links to technical documents:
Snowbridge App: https://app.snowbridge.network/
X: https://x.com/snowfork_inc
Technical Documentation: https://docs.snowbridge.network/
Github: https://github.com/Snowfork/snowbridge
Original article: https://snowfork.substack.com/p/snowbridge-is-live
Tags:
PolkaWorld
Ethereum
Snowbridge Unveiling the Trustless Link Between Ethereum and Polkadot