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Token bridge: A conceptual overview

Token bridging is a fundamental aspect of any Layer 2 (L2) protocol. Arbitrum uses its ability to pass messages between L1 and L2 (see Cross-chain messaging) to allow projects to trustlessly move assets from Ethereum to an Arbitrum chain and back. Any asset and asset type can in principle be bridged, including Ether, ERC-20 tokens and ERC-721 tokens among others.

This section offers a series of conceptual documents explaining how asset bridging works and what options exist to bridge ether (ETH) and other types of asset between layers.

This section is divided in 2 main pages:

  • ETH bridging: explains how Arbitrum handles bridging ETH, the native token of Ethereum and the Arbitrum chains, between L1 and L2.
  • 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.

For a more practical approach, there are How-to pages that go over the process of making an ERC-20 token bridgeable using the different types of gateway available in the token bridge.