Token bridging overview
Token bridging is a fundamental aspect of any Layer 2 (child chain) protocol. Arbitrum uses its ability to pass messages between parent and child chains (see Cross-chain messaging) to enable projects to move assets between Ethereum and an Arbitrum chain trustlessly, and vice versa. Any asset and asset type in principle can be bridged, including ETH
, ERC-20
tokens, and ERC-721
tokens, among others.
The following sections provide a series of conceptual documents that explain how asset bridging works and the options available to bridge ETH
and other types of assets between layers. Additionally, a series of how-to guides showcases the different methods for making your token bridgeable.
This section has three parts:
ETH
bridging: explains how Arbitrum handles bridgingETH
, the native token of Ethereum and the Arbitrum chains, between the parent and child chain.ERC-20
token bridging: explains the architecture of the token bridge for this type of asset, describing the different options available to make a token bridgeable.- Bridge tokens programmatically: goes over the process of making an
ERC-20
token bridgeable using the different types of gateways available in the token bridge.