Cross-chain asset transfer has been around for several years. The concept developed almost as soon as multiple blockchains were developed and began to gain adoption. In its initial application, the transfers focused on swaps between the chain’s native assets and tokens, which led later to several decentralized exchanges. While exchange of assets has its utility, pure transfer and movement of assets and other data easily across blockchains without changing their identities is just as important, and is becoming more frequent.
Currently, 400,000 Bitcoin (BTC), and increasing, exist and are used in transactions outside of the Bitcoin blockchain. A good amount of Ether (ETH) has also been ported to other networks. Some of these are referred to as wrapped tokens to differentiate them from the same asset when they exist on their native network. Transfer of the native assets from the more established older blockchains to the newer ones is accomplished through what is known as bridges.