What Is a Cross-Chain Swap? (And How Is It Different From a Bridge?)

If you've ever tried to move Bitcoin to Ethereum or swap SOL for USDC on a different chain, you've run into the cross-chain problem. Different blockchains don't natively talk to each other. Bitcoin doesn't know Ethereum exists, and Ethereum doesn't know what's happening on Solana.

Two approaches have emerged to solve this: bridges and cross-chain swaps. They're often lumped together, but they work very differently and carry very different risks. Understanding the distinction matters if you care about what happens to your assets along the way.

Every Blockchain Is a Closed System: Here's Why That's a Problem

Every blockchain is its own ledger. Bitcoin tracks BTC balances, Ethereum tracks ETH and ERC-20 balances, Solana tracks SOL. There's no shared database between them.

This creates a real limitation. If you hold BTC and want to participate in DeFi on Ethereum, or if you want to convert SOL into USDC on Ethereum, you need some mechanism to move value across these separate systems.

Centralized exchanges solve this by acting as intermediaries. You deposit BTC on Coinbase, sell it for ETH, and withdraw ETH to your wallet. It works, but you're trusting a third party with your funds, going through KYC, and paying multiple fees along the way.

Bridges and cross-chain swaps both attempt to do this without a centralized middleman. But they take fundamentally different approaches.

How Crypto Bridges Work: Lock, Mint, and Redeem

A bridge locks your asset on the source chain and mints a synthetic version of it on the destination chain. When you "bridge" BTC to Ethereum, you don't actually move Bitcoin to Ethereum. That's not technically possible. Instead, you lock your BTC in a smart contract or with a custodian, and in return you receive a token on Ethereum (like wBTC or tBTC) that represents your locked Bitcoin.

This synthetic token is a claim. It says: "There is 1 BTC locked up somewhere, and whoever holds this token can eventually redeem it."

The bridge model works like this:

You send 1 BTC to the bridge's lock contract. The bridge verifies your deposit. It mints 1 wBTC (or similar) on Ethereum. You now hold wBTC, which you can use in Ethereum DeFi. When you want your BTC back, you burn the wBTC and the bridge releases your original Bitcoin.

The problem is everything that sits between "lock" and "release."

Why Bridges Have Lost Over $2.8 Billion to Hacks

Bridges have been the most exploited category in crypto. Over $2.8 billion has been lost to bridge hacks, accounting for roughly 40% of all value stolen in DeFi.

Why? Because bridges create concentrated honeypots. They hold large pools of locked assets, secured by smart contracts or small groups of validators. Attack one contract or compromise a few keys, and you drain the entire pool.

Some notable examples:

Some notable examples: the Ronin bridge lost $624 million in 2022 when attackers compromised 5 of 9 validator keys (Elliptic, 2022); Wormhole lost $326 million to a smart contract exploit that let attackers mint tokens without depositing collateral (Certik, 2022); and Nomad lost $190 million after a routine upgrade introduced a vulnerability that let anyone drain funds (The Block, 2022).

Beyond hacks, bridges introduce other risks. Custodial risk is baked in, because someone or something has to hold the locked assets. Smart contract risk is elevated because bridge contracts tend to be complex, handling cross-chain message verification, minting, burning, and redemption logic all in one system. And there's depeg risk, because the synthetic token is only worth anything if the backing remains intact. During the FTX collapse in November 2022, wBTC briefly depegged from BTC by roughly $250 (CoinGecko, 2022).

How Cross-Chain Swaps Work: Native Assets, No Wrapping Required

Cross-chain swaps take a different approach entirely. Instead of locking and minting, they execute a direct exchange of native assets across chains.

No synthetic tokens. No wrapping. You send real BTC and receive real ETH (or SOL, or USDC) on the other side.

The concept isn't new. Atomic swaps, the earliest version of cross-chain swaps, were proposed years ago. They use hash time-locked contracts (HTLCs) to ensure both sides of a trade execute or neither does. But atomic swaps never gained traction because they require both parties to be online, have limited asset support, and are slow.

Modern cross-chain swap protocols have evolved past these limitations. They use liquidity pools, automated market makers, and decentralized validator networks to execute swaps in a single user-facing transaction.

The key difference: at no point does a synthetic or wrapped version of your asset exist. You're exchanging native assets, not IOUs.

Bridges vs. Cross-Chain Swaps: A Direct Comparison

What you receive. With a bridge, you receive a wrapped or synthetic token on the destination chain. With a cross-chain swap, you receive the native asset.

Trust assumptions. Bridges require you to trust that the locked collateral is safe and that the minting/burning mechanism is secure. Cross-chain swap protocols distribute trust across validator networks or use cryptographic guarantees.

Attack surface. Bridges concentrate risk in lock contracts and custodial vaults. Cross-chain swaps distribute execution across independent chains and validator sets.

User experience. Bridges often require multiple steps: approve, lock, wait for confirmation, claim on the other side. Some cross-chain swaps execute in a single transaction from the user's perspective.

Reversibility. Bridge operations are two-step (bridge in, bridge out). If you want your original asset back, you need to bridge again. Cross-chain swaps are one-step: you have the native asset and can do whatever you want with it.

Composability. Wrapped tokens from bridges can be used in DeFi on the destination chain, which is their main advantage. Native assets from cross-chain swaps can be used anywhere that chain's native asset is accepted.

How Chainflip Executes Native Cross-Chain Swaps

Chainflip is a cross-chain swap protocol, not a bridge. No wrapped tokens are created during a swap.

When you swap BTC for ETH through Chainflip, you send native BTC to a deposit address controlled by Chainflip's decentralized validator network. The validators confirm your deposit on the State Chain (Chainflip's coordination layer). Your swap executes through the JIT (Just-In-Time) AMM, where market makers compete to offer the best price. Native ETH is sent to your destination wallet.

The validator network uses threshold signature cryptography (TSS) with a 100-of-150 validator requirement (Chainflip Docs). There's no single entity holding your funds. Compromising the system would require corrupting over two-thirds of the validator set simultaneously.

This is fundamentally different from a bridge. There's no synthetic token created, no wrapping, no minting. The BTC you sent is held by the protocol's decentralized vaults, and native ETH arrives in your wallet. One transaction, no intermediary tokens. The protocol has processed over $6 billion in cumulative swap volume (Chainflip Analytics, Feb 2026).

When You Might Still Use a Bridge

Bridges aren't going away, and they do serve specific use cases.

If you want to use your Bitcoin inside Ethereum DeFi protocols (lending on Aave, providing liquidity on Uniswap), you need a representation of BTC on Ethereum. That's what wrapped tokens provide. Cross-chain swaps give you native ETH, not a Bitcoin representation on Ethereum.

If you need to move a token that only exists on one chain to another chain (like moving an ERC-20 to Arbitrum), bridges handle that. Cross-chain swaps are specifically for exchanging one native asset for another.

The question is really about what you're trying to do. Moving value between chains? Cross-chain swaps are cleaner and carry fewer trust assumptions. Porting a specific token to use in another chain's ecosystem? A bridge might be your only option.

The Industry Is Moving Away From Wrapped Tokens

The trend in cross-chain infrastructure is away from wrapped tokens and toward native asset movement. The bridge hack statistics have accelerated this shift, but the architectural advantages of native swaps go beyond security.

Users don't want to think about wrapping, bridging, claiming, and unwrapping. They want to swap BTC for ETH and get on with their day. The protocols that make that possible with the fewest trust assumptions and the least friction are the ones gaining traction.

Cross-chain swaps won't replace bridges entirely. But for the most common use case, simply moving value from one chain to another, they offer a fundamentally better architecture.

Resources

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FAQ

What is a cross-chain swap?
A cross-chain swap is a direct exchange of native assets across different blockchains. You send one asset (like BTC) and receive another (like ETH) on a different chain, without any wrapped or synthetic tokens being created in between.

What is a crypto bridge?
A crypto bridge locks your asset on one blockchain and mints a synthetic representation of it on another. For example, locking BTC and receiving wBTC on Ethereum. The synthetic token represents a claim on the locked original.

Are cross-chain swaps safer than bridges?
Cross-chain swaps generally carry fewer trust assumptions because they don't create large pools of locked collateral that can be exploited. Bridge hacks have accounted for over $2.8 billion in losses. That said, both approaches have security considerations, and the specific protocol design matters more than the category.

Do I need a bridge to use Bitcoin in DeFi?
It depends on what you mean by "use." If you want a representation of Bitcoin to use as collateral on Ethereum-based lending platforms, bridges (and wrapped tokens like wBTC) are one approach. If you simply want to swap Bitcoin for another asset, a cross-chain swap protocol like Chainflip lets you do that with native assets and no wrapping required.

What are wrapped tokens?
Wrapped tokens are synthetic assets on one blockchain that represent native assets locked on another. wBTC is the most common example: it's an ERC-20 token on Ethereum backed by Bitcoin held in custody. They enable cross-chain composability but introduce custodial, smart contract, and depeg risks.

How does Chainflip handle cross-chain swaps?
Chainflip uses a decentralized validator network with threshold signature cryptography (100-of-150 validators) to secure vaults on each supported blockchain. When you swap, you send native assets to a deposit address, the swap executes through a JIT AMM, and native assets arrive in your destination wallet. No wrapping, no bridges.

Can I swap Bitcoin for Solana without a centralized exchange?
Yes. Cross-chain swap protocols like Chainflip let you swap native BTC for native SOL in a single transaction without KYC, accounts, or intermediaries.