Polkadot Aims To “Bridge” Crypto’s Bridge Issue With XCM Messaging

Polkadot thinks they have found a way to “bridge” one of the largest points of failure in the crypto industry: Bridges.

Polkadot has launched a brand-new cross-chain communications protocol, stating that it will help get rid of problematic bridging mechanisms that have cost the crypto industry billions in the past.

The new XCM messaging system intends to promote Polkadot’s multichain ecosystem, which is built on the idea of interoperability. XCM channels are said to have the same security measures as Polkadot’s central hub, Relay Chain, and are also available for use by parachains.

This means that XCM will make it possible for communication to take place between parachains themselves as well as smart contracts. Messages can thus be sent between parachains without them having to be stored on the Relay Chain.

This can eliminate the possibility of bridge hacks which have cost the crypto industry more than $1 billion over the last year. More than $21 billion is currently locked on Ethereum’s bridges since March 30, according to data from Data Analytics, Bloomberg.

The most well-known bridge hack was the Axie Infinity’s Ronin bridge exploit. In this incident, the perpetrators got away with more than $600 million worth of digital assets.

Public Affairs Head at Polkadot, Peter Mauric, highlighted some of the most common flaws of bridges. According to him “most bridges today rely on a few weak foundations, primarily over-reliance on centralized multi-signature schemes, meaning that they aren’t trustless or spaghetti smart contract code that opens users up to attack.”

He then further added that the “communication between parachains on Polkadot avoid these pitfalls.”