Day 38: What Is Bridging (And Why It Feels Like an Airport Transfer)

How your crypto “flies” from one blockchain to another.

By now, we’ve walked through wallets, DEXs, staking, liquidity pools, yield farming, and even real yield. One pattern keeps showing up: crypto doesn’t live in just one place anymore.

There’s Ethereum.
There’s Base.
There’s Solana, Arbitrum, Polygon, BSC…

Each one is like its own country with its own rules, gas fees, and opportunities.
So here’s the big question:

👉 If your crypto is stuck on one chain, how do you use something that lives on another?

That’s where bridging comes in.

What is bridging, really?

Bridging is the process of moving your assets from one blockchain to another.

You’re not literally picking up a coin from Ethereum and dropping it onto Base. Instead, what usually happens is:

1. Your token on Chain A (say, Ethereum) is locked or burned.
2. A corresponding token on Chain B (say, Base) is minted or released.

To you, it just feels like:
“I sent ETH from Ethereum and now I see ETH on Base.”
But behind the scenes, it’s a lot of coordination, smart contracts, and sometimes validators making sure everything matches.

The airport transfer analogy

Think of it like a connecting flight.

You’re flying from Manila to New York with a layover in Dubai.
At the stopover, you’re not duplicated, your seat just changes planes.

With bridging, your asset leaves one “plane” (blockchain), passes through a secure transfer process, then appears on another.
Same you, different route.
Same token type, different chain.

You don’t suddenly have two of yourself, and most bridges are designed so your token doesn’t either.

Why people bridge in the first place

So why bother? Why not just stay on one chain forever?

People bridge because different chains offer different benefits:

• Lower fees – Gas on Ethereum can be expensive; Base or Layer 2s are cheaper.
• Better apps – A specific DeFi protocol, NFT marketplace, or game might only live on another chain.
• Faster speed – Some chains are optimized for speed and volume.
• Yield opportunities – A farm or staking pool might exist only on a certain network.

Bridging lets you chase opportunities without needing to cash out to fiat and back in again.

How a bridge works (from a user’s POV)

The good news: most bridges try to make the process feel simple.

Typically, you’ll:

1. Connect your wallet (like MetaMask).
2. Choose the network you’re sending from and to (e.g., Ethereum → Base).
3. Select the token and amount.
4. Confirm the transaction and pay gas on the source chain.
5. Wait for the bridge to process… then see your tokens arrive on the destination chain.

It feels a bit like sending something by courier: you hand it over at one desk, wait, and pick it up somewhere else.

Where bridges can go wrong

Bridging is one of the most powerful tools in crypto, but also one of the places where beginners (and honestly, even seasoned users) stumble the hardest.

Smart contract risks, wrong networks, fake websites, they all exist.
But the most relatable mistake is the one I made back in Day 5, when I shared my story about being “lost in the wrong chain.”

I’ll never forget that moment.

I sent funds to what I thought was the right chain…
but when the transaction completed, the tokens were nowhere to be found.

Not on the DEX I wanted to use.
Not on the wallet view I opened.
Not even searchable on the network I expected.

I refreshed the app.
I checked the wallet.
I checked the transaction hash.
I even checked my internet connection, because of course I did.

And then it hit me:
I bridged to the wrong chain.

My assets weren’t gone, they were simply sitting somewhere I couldn’t use them.
Like arriving at Terminal 4 when your flight is actually departing from Terminal 1.

It wasn’t a rug.
It wasn’t a hack.
It was simply me… landing in the wrong “airport.”

That one moment taught me something that has stayed with me ever since:

Bridging isn’t dangerous because it’s technical.
It’s dangerous because one small detail, one wrong network, one wrong dropdown, can send your assets somewhere you didn’t intend.

Which is why, today, I never bridge without checking:

• Source chain
• Destination chain
• Token name
• The official bridge URL
• That my wallet is set to the correct network

Bridging works beautifully 99% of the time.
It’s the 1% of human error that can send your heart straight into your stomach.

So if you ever feel nervous before clicking “Bridge”, trust me, that’s normal.
The moment you’ve been stranded once, you never forget to check your arrival gate again.

Native vs third-party bridges

Not all bridges are built the same:

• Native bridges – Created by the chain team itself. Example: Ethereum ↔ Base official bridge.
• Third-party bridges – Independent cross-chain protocols that connect many chains at once.

Native bridges are often simpler but limited to one ecosystem.
Third-party bridges are more flexible, but rely on additional trust assumptions and code.

For beginners, sticking to official or widely trusted bridges is usually safer than chasing the most advanced cross-chain setup.

The bigger story: from islands to networks

At the start, blockchains were like digital islands.
You picked one and stayed there.

Bridges turned those islands into connected cities, letting value flow between them instead of trapping users in one place.

This matters because:

• It makes crypto more usable.
• It lets builders design apps that span multiple chains.
• It gives users more choice: lower fees here, better yields there, new apps somewhere else.

Bridging is how crypto slowly becomes one giant network instead of a bunch of walled gardens.

Takeaway

Bridging is the “airport transfer” of crypto, a little awkward at first, sometimes slow, but incredibly powerful once you understand it.

It’s how your crypto travels.
How you explore new chains.
How you unlock opportunities that don’t exist where you started.

Just like any trip, it’s safest when you:

• Know where you’re going,
• Use trusted routes, and
• Keep an eye on your luggage (your keys!) the entire time.

Have you ever tried using a bridge, even just once?

If yes, which chains did you move between?

If not, what scares you most about sending your crypto “on a trip” to another network?