Avalanche-Ethereum Bridge Now Live, with HashQuark as One of Its Developers

We’re proud to announce that a bridge connecting Avalanche to Ethereum is now live, which is co-developed by HashQuark, ChainSafe, Protofire, POA Network, Avascan, and Meter.io.

With the bridge, users lock Wrapped ETH (WETH), ERC-20, or ERC-721 assets in the ChainBridge contract on Ethereum, and an equivalent token is minted on Avalanche and deposited to the desired address. This asset is now usable across any DeFi applications on Avalanche, and can be transferred back-and-forth at any time.

This infrastructure is vital to enabling Avalanche’s DeFi ecosystem to flourish, while also clearing a final barrier for existing DeFi projects to launch their applications on Avalanche’s blazing fast implementation of the Ethereum Virtual Machine.

With a few minor edits to their smart contract code, Ethereum DeFi projects can offer users an alternative platform that solves the biggest issues impacting them today: high fees and slow transaction speeds. Avalanche regularly finalizes transactions in under one second, with fees that are just a fraction of Ethereum’s today.

As one of Avalanche’s strategic partners and AEB developers, HashQuark will work to provide the highest standard security and infrastructure services to maintain the Avalanche ecosystem.

“Bridges play a vital role in enabling DeFi to grow beyond the borders of one network to complementary ecosystems,” explained Emin Gün Sirer, chief executive and co-founder of Ava Labs. “This bridge will open the floodgates for hundreds of Ethereum assets, including cornerstone DeFi assets like WBTC, AAVE, and others to flow into Avalanche, fuelling applications like decentralized exchanges, lending protocols, and prediction markets.”