Third Party Bridge Integration and Explaining Bridge Risks

The Ethereum ecosystem is quickly becoming further cross-chain and multi-chain compatible. As such, Premia plans to implement a framework for seamless multi-chain deployment so we can launch on other EVM-compatible L1’s and L2’s and maintain each deployment with ease. As part of this, we have implemented our initial cross-chain bridge aggregator.

With the Fantom launch, we have added Fantom network support to the built-in third party bridge on the Premia website (for cross-chain transfers). Let’s dive in.

Third Party Bridge Integration

With our Fantom launch, we have added support for Fantom to the third-party bridge on the Premia user interface. The goal of the “Swap & Bridge” feature on Premia is to help users obtain the assets they require, without leaving the site and opening yet another tab. (This is the same reason we allow users to swap on-site using our aggregator, allowing users to get the best price across DEX’s directly on Premia).

The third-party bridge being utilized for Fantom cross-chain swaps on Premia is Multichain.org

Using a third-party bridge comes with some unique risks and quirks that we believe users should consider.

What are Bridge Risks?

Let’s discuss some of the quirks of the Multichain bridge.

The bridge goes from:

• Ethereum Mainnet → Arbitrum
• Ethereum Mainnet → Fantom
• Arbitrum → Ethereum Mainnet
• Fantom → Ethereum Mainnet
• Arbitrum → Fantom
• Fantom → Arbitrum
• And many other supported cross-chain paths

Please note that we cannot always bridge Arbitrum <> Fantom, due to a lack of liquidity on these Multichain routes

Bridging tokens from Ethereum Mainnet to Fantom will work just like our current Ethereum to Arbitrum bridge — no additional fees (gas fees only). But bridging tokens back from Fantom to Ethereum Mainnet will use Multichain’s router which takes 0.01% of the amount swapped as a fee, with a minimum fee of 80 DAI equivalent (0.02 ETH, 0.0013 WBTC, etc).

Our existing native Arbitrum bridge has no additional fees (and less risk) but it comes with the trade-off of a 7-day withdrawal delay. So bridging from Ethereum to Arbitrum is nearly instant but bridging back from Arbitrum to Ethereum incurs a week long wait.

If you’d like to learn more about why there’s a 7-day delay to bridge off Arbitrum, Offchain Labs has an excellent article on it that covers L1 finality here. The Fantom bridge will not have this withdrawal delay but will have the fees and minimum amount requirements explained below.

There are also minimum amounts required to send Fantom <> Ethereum using Multichain. For example: the minimum DAI to bridge into Fantom from Ethereum Mainnet is 80 DAI, and then 200 DAI minimum to bridge back to Mainnet. Accordingly, the user would receive 120 DAI back because of the 80 DAI minimum fee. The estimated total bridge time there and back from Fantom ranges from 10 to 30 minutes.

Using a third-party bridge comes with risks. In recent years, bridges have been subject to hacks. It’s important to remember that when you use a bridge, you are depositing your token and receiving a different token as a kind of IOU for the token you originally deposited from Mainnet.

One risk to using bridges is that the bridge may be exploited, resulting in a loss of funds which could affect users of that bridge.

Another risk of using third-party bridges are delays. Users may send their funds to a bridge and wait longer than anticipated to receive their funds on the other chain.

PLEASE NOTE: in the event of a bridge exploit which results in a loss of user funds, or if a user experiences delays in receiving funds from a bridge, the Premia team is unfortunately UNABLE TO ASSIST users in either of these situations. Users assume full responsibility for any risks of using the bridges and Premia is not liable for any resulting losses.

And to all those bridging and swapping over to the new chains: may your bridging be smooth and successful.

Have questions about Premia?

Drop by our Discord server and chat with us, we’d be happy to answer your questions about what we’re building for Premia.

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