Most people mistakenly believe that the only risk associated with bridges is that of bridge hackers, however this is not the case.
If you own bridging assets, you run the risk of being diluted every second!
Because of this, Vitalik is apprehensive about cross-chain operations despite his hope for a multi-chain ecosystem. Fundamentally, it is safe to own native assets on their native chains (for example, Ether on Ethereum and Sol on Solana).
Because the protocol rules safeguard your assets and prevent thieves from stealing them, even in the improbable scenario of a 51% attack.
When they bridge, a problem occurs.For instance, once they have received the Wrapped Ether (WETH) on the target chain, an attacker can bridge Ethereum to another chain and undo the transaction on Ethereum.
Due to this, there will be an excess of WETH relative to the Eth in the bridge contract, diluting WETH.As a result, if you had WETH on the destination chain at the time of the event, you would lose money because WETH would now be worth less than Eth.Roll Ups, or Layer 2 solutions, are fortunately resistant to this issue because rolling back the Ethereum blockchain will also affect all Roll Ups that are built on Ethereum.
Therefore, it is secure to keep Layer 2 native assets on other Layer 2 solutions as well as Layer 2 native assets on Ethereum.The amount of assets currently held in bridges makes it unprofitable for anyone to undertake a 51% attack, Vitalik Buterin continued.
However, as more assets are connected, the incentives for such an assault grow.But in my opinion, it’s already problematic because these bridges rely on mint-wrapped assets rather than locked assets when you bridge, which makes them less secure.
Additionally, an attacker might perpetually repeat the operation with a tiny sum, like 100 ETH.
Currently, the obstacle is the high cost of 51% assaults.In conclusion, it is best to avoid connecting native assets to other chains, especially if you want to reduce your risk.
This supports both the integrity of blockchain technology and maintaining strong security practises.
Stay secure.
