Moonbeam, an Ethereum-compatible smart contract platform on Polkadot, announced today the completion of a testnet integration of ChainBridge, a modular multi-directional bridge built by ChainSafe. This is the first bridge between Ethereum and the Moonbeam parachain on Polkadot and will allow asset transfers between the two independent chains.
The Ethereum-friendly design of Moonbeam has made it an ideal expansion point for many Solidity-based projects that want access to the growing Polkadot ecosystem. Projects in the Moonbeam testnet need a working bridge to connect their multi-chain deployments, and Polkadot-only projects want to have access to ERC-20 and ERC-721 tokens that live on Ethereum today. The ChainBridge deployment on Moonbeam removes this impediment to allow free movement of tokens between the sovereign chains.
“ChainBridge has been our response to the imperative for open-source protocol objectivity, sustainability, and collaboration. Our goal is to allow projects to interact with one another using a lightweight and simple integration. Collaboration is good for the whole garden, and it gets competitors to see value beyond zero-sum thinking.”
– ChainSafe Founder and CEO Aidan Hyman
This instance of the bridge was deployed between Kovan, the Ethereum testnet, and Moonbase Alpha, the Moonbeam testnet. It simplifies the process of transferring between independent/sovereign networks by enabling transactions on one chain, which are then relayed and executed via subsequent transactions on the other. The Moonbeam team plans to make the bridge available in a MainNet environment once parachain functionality is enabled on Kusama and Polkadot, expected later this year.
“The Moonbeam team is constantly working to simplify the process for Ethereum-based projects that want to expand to Polkadot. Through our work with ChainSafe on the ChainBridge project, we are able to offer a fully-functioning bridge from the Moonbeam parachain to Ethereum.”
– Derek Yoo, CEO of PureStake and Founder of the Moonbeam project
In preparation for the ChainBridge launch, the Moonbeam team has created some tutorials for moving ERC-20s and ERC-721s to Moonbeam from Ethereum. To learn more about the integration and start testing, check out the Moonbeam documentation tutorials.