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It was just recently that I found myself ready to explore the L1 ecosystem. My crypto worldview was Ethereum only, and I still consider it my home network today.
I assumed other platforms didn’t matter — but I was wrong for sure.
Gas is the fee you pay to make a transaction on a blockchain network. On Ethereum, transaction fees are outrageously expensive at times. That reason alone is getting people to move to different networks, but switching networks is a foreign experience for most people.
Blockchain interoperability is a new world endeavor. It connects smart contract platforms via the tokens on the network.
One of the ways to connect networks is using a “bridge”. A bridge is a portal that enables users to move their tokens from one network to another. A bridge enables blockchain interoperability.
In this tutorial, we’ll go over a bridge that can move your tokens across 7 different blockchains — including Ethereum, and Solana.
The bridge was built by Wormhole, and it’s called the Wormhole Bridge.
Let’s check it out.
To start, I want to share my reason for using Wormhole’s network bridge.
I’m collecting aliens.
Seriously, I wanted to transfer some Ether to the Solana network in order to mint some more decentraliens (https://www.invisiblecollege.xyz/) — a great community of web3 learners and builders!
So, I used Wormhole Bridge to transfer Ether (ETH) from my Ethereum wallet over to wrapped ETH (WETH) on Solana. Then I swapped the WETH on Solana for some SOL, and minted a few more aliens.
For this tutorial there are a few requirements in order to use Wormhole Bridge:
A wallet and account in the source network. In this tutorial I use Ethereum and the MetaMask wallet (https://metamask.io/).
Tokens you want to transfer from the source network, plus gas/transaction fees — I send ETH, which gets wrapped into WETH. Gas fees on Ethereum are paid in ETH.
A wallet and account on the target network. My target network is Solana and I use the Phantom wallet (https://phantom.app/).
Gas/transaction fees in the target network — I need SOL for this tutorial. Phantom has ways to buy SOL — view the options by choosing Deposit on the main screen. I used Coinbase to buy SOL previously.
Once you’re good on the pre-reqs, there’s a few steps to do:
Connect the bridge
Make the transfer
Redeem the tokens
We’ll cover each step below.
A note to remember before jumping in: transactions are the most important thing.
Transactions are hard to read for humans, but they are everything that blockchain nodes need in order to execute web3 contracts — as a web3 user, it helps learning how to use block explorers like Etherscan and Solscan.
If you get stuck during the process or aren’t sure what step you’re on, check your transaction history. If you don’t see any recent transactions then you probably haven’t approved anything. If you see a transaction that’s pending, wait for more confirmations before giving up and trying again.
Let’s go!
Steps
[00:00 - 00:38] Connect the bridge.
Open the portal.
Go to wormholenetwork.com - then choose Portal.
Choose your source network (where your tokens will come from; Ethereum), then choose your target network (where your tokens will go to; Solana).
Web3 connect your source wallet.
Input the amount of the token you want to transfer (I chose Ether; ETH).
Connect your Solana wallet.
Web3 connect your Solana wallet (I used Phantom in the tutorial).
If you have any trouble connecting, you can refresh the page or navigate away and come back at this point.
Choose Create Associated Token Account.
Web3 approve the transaction.
[00:32 - 01:06] Make the transfer.
Click Next, then view the bridged tokens amount and what account the tokens will be sent to. Then click Transfer.
In the next view, click Transfer, then Confirm in the popup.
Done!
Throughout my experience using Wormhole Bridge, I felt confident that things worked as expected. I didn’t feel like I was being scammed at any point in the process, even with the few hiccups along the way.
A few highlights
It works! It’s definitely not easy to implement a token portal like this, so major props to the team that built the bridge.
Nice UI for a very complicated service. The app has a fairly fool-proof UI, limited to a set of actions you can take, and each one is exactly where you think it should be on the page. I appreciate the effort to keep the app simple.
Well placed messaging. The app uses flash messages to share status of checkpoints in the process. Also, there are a couple highlight notes placed in key locations on the page — e.g., it was nice that they shared a note about being able to resume the swap if you navigate away from the page.
A few wishes
More enthusiastic design. This app feels like it needs a designer’s eye for touch and polish. Sure there’s only three tabs and one UI block in the entire app, which makes using it simple enough. However, even with those few pieces, it all feels disconnected.
Smoother UX. Wormhole’s portal bridge is clunky. I faced a lot of hiccups while bridging my tokens. I dealt with having to connect my account multiple times, refreshing past an endless loading state, and even clicking in and out of tabs in order to trigger the UI to re-render.
Share more information. It’d be nice if these apps mentioned how many transactions you’re going to approve - and what each one does.
It’s essential for interoperability in crypto to have a tool like Wormhole Bridge. Wormhole built a critical infrastructure tool that seems trustworthy on most accounts. That being said, even established tools like this can have their issues.
Just one month ago, in February 2022 Wormhole suffered from a major incident. An attacker exploited a vulnerability in the Wormhole network and minted 120k Wormhole-wrapped Ether on Solana. That’s a whole lot of money and there was a negative media cycle for crypto.
From what I can tell, Wormhole has been transparent and held themselves accountable for the exploit. They published an incident report on their blog, and launched a bug bounty program on Immunefi.
Cases like that show the dangers of cryptocurrency; though, they definitely shouldn’t be deterrents.
As we all continue expanding our crypto toolkits, it’s important to explore diverse sets of tools and ecosystems on our journeys.
Using a portal like Wormhole Bridge to send tokens across networks is a great way of getting started on new frontiers like Solana and the other networks Wormhole Bridge integrates with — e.g., Avalanche, Terra, and Polygon, to name a few.
Hopefully, just like it did for me, this tutorial inspires you to continue exploring the worlds of web3.
Scored in the categories: Product and Presence. Each category is out of 10.
Product - 7
Basic, non-flashy UI that gets the job done.
Product seems trustworthy and safe to use.
Presence - 7
It was just recently that I found myself ready to explore the L1 ecosystem. My crypto worldview was Ethereum only, and I still consider it my home network today.
I assumed other platforms didn’t matter — but I was wrong for sure.
Gas is the fee you pay to make a transaction on a blockchain network. On Ethereum, transaction fees are outrageously expensive at times. That reason alone is getting people to move to different networks, but switching networks is a foreign experience for most people.
Blockchain interoperability is a new world endeavor. It connects smart contract platforms via the tokens on the network.
One of the ways to connect networks is using a “bridge”. A bridge is a portal that enables users to move their tokens from one network to another. A bridge enables blockchain interoperability.
In this tutorial, we’ll go over a bridge that can move your tokens across 7 different blockchains — including Ethereum, and Solana.
The bridge was built by Wormhole, and it’s called the Wormhole Bridge.
Let’s check it out.
To start, I want to share my reason for using Wormhole’s network bridge.
I’m collecting aliens.
Seriously, I wanted to transfer some Ether to the Solana network in order to mint some more decentraliens (https://www.invisiblecollege.xyz/) — a great community of web3 learners and builders!
So, I used Wormhole Bridge to transfer Ether (ETH) from my Ethereum wallet over to wrapped ETH (WETH) on Solana. Then I swapped the WETH on Solana for some SOL, and minted a few more aliens.
For this tutorial there are a few requirements in order to use Wormhole Bridge:
A wallet and account in the source network. In this tutorial I use Ethereum and the MetaMask wallet (https://metamask.io/).
Tokens you want to transfer from the source network, plus gas/transaction fees — I send ETH, which gets wrapped into WETH. Gas fees on Ethereum are paid in ETH.
A wallet and account on the target network. My target network is Solana and I use the Phantom wallet (https://phantom.app/).
Gas/transaction fees in the target network — I need SOL for this tutorial. Phantom has ways to buy SOL — view the options by choosing Deposit on the main screen. I used Coinbase to buy SOL previously.
Once you’re good on the pre-reqs, there’s a few steps to do:
Connect the bridge
Make the transfer
Redeem the tokens
We’ll cover each step below.
A note to remember before jumping in: transactions are the most important thing.
Transactions are hard to read for humans, but they are everything that blockchain nodes need in order to execute web3 contracts — as a web3 user, it helps learning how to use block explorers like Etherscan and Solscan.
If you get stuck during the process or aren’t sure what step you’re on, check your transaction history. If you don’t see any recent transactions then you probably haven’t approved anything. If you see a transaction that’s pending, wait for more confirmations before giving up and trying again.
Let’s go!
Steps
[00:00 - 00:38] Connect the bridge.
Open the portal.
Go to wormholenetwork.com - then choose Portal.
Choose your source network (where your tokens will come from; Ethereum), then choose your target network (where your tokens will go to; Solana).
Web3 connect your source wallet.
Input the amount of the token you want to transfer (I chose Ether; ETH).
Connect your Solana wallet.
Web3 connect your Solana wallet (I used Phantom in the tutorial).
If you have any trouble connecting, you can refresh the page or navigate away and come back at this point.
Choose Create Associated Token Account.
Web3 approve the transaction.
[00:32 - 01:06] Make the transfer.
Click Next, then view the bridged tokens amount and what account the tokens will be sent to. Then click Transfer.
In the next view, click Transfer, then Confirm in the popup.
Done!
Throughout my experience using Wormhole Bridge, I felt confident that things worked as expected. I didn’t feel like I was being scammed at any point in the process, even with the few hiccups along the way.
A few highlights
It works! It’s definitely not easy to implement a token portal like this, so major props to the team that built the bridge.
Nice UI for a very complicated service. The app has a fairly fool-proof UI, limited to a set of actions you can take, and each one is exactly where you think it should be on the page. I appreciate the effort to keep the app simple.
Well placed messaging. The app uses flash messages to share status of checkpoints in the process. Also, there are a couple highlight notes placed in key locations on the page — e.g., it was nice that they shared a note about being able to resume the swap if you navigate away from the page.
A few wishes
More enthusiastic design. This app feels like it needs a designer’s eye for touch and polish. Sure there’s only three tabs and one UI block in the entire app, which makes using it simple enough. However, even with those few pieces, it all feels disconnected.
Smoother UX. Wormhole’s portal bridge is clunky. I faced a lot of hiccups while bridging my tokens. I dealt with having to connect my account multiple times, refreshing past an endless loading state, and even clicking in and out of tabs in order to trigger the UI to re-render.
Share more information. It’d be nice if these apps mentioned how many transactions you’re going to approve - and what each one does.
It’s essential for interoperability in crypto to have a tool like Wormhole Bridge. Wormhole built a critical infrastructure tool that seems trustworthy on most accounts. That being said, even established tools like this can have their issues.
Just one month ago, in February 2022 Wormhole suffered from a major incident. An attacker exploited a vulnerability in the Wormhole network and minted 120k Wormhole-wrapped Ether on Solana. That’s a whole lot of money and there was a negative media cycle for crypto.
From what I can tell, Wormhole has been transparent and held themselves accountable for the exploit. They published an incident report on their blog, and launched a bug bounty program on Immunefi.
Cases like that show the dangers of cryptocurrency; though, they definitely shouldn’t be deterrents.
As we all continue expanding our crypto toolkits, it’s important to explore diverse sets of tools and ecosystems on our journeys.
Using a portal like Wormhole Bridge to send tokens across networks is a great way of getting started on new frontiers like Solana and the other networks Wormhole Bridge integrates with — e.g., Avalanche, Terra, and Polygon, to name a few.
Hopefully, just like it did for me, this tutorial inspires you to continue exploring the worlds of web3.
Scored in the categories: Product and Presence. Each category is out of 10.
Product - 7
Basic, non-flashy UI that gets the job done.
Product seems trustworthy and safe to use.
Presence - 7
Web3 approve the transaction from your wallet — this requires paying a gas fee.
Wait for the transaction to propagate on chain. This can take time. You can view the transaction details in your wallet — the tutorial transaction wraps ETH and transfer it.
[01:06 - 01:56] Redeem the tokens.
Verify recipient address is correct, then choose Redeem.
Web3 approve the redemption transaction.
In this case, since my target network is Solana, I approved four transactions in order to complete the process. In the fourth transaction I see the 0.1 ETH I bridged specified in the transaction details.
My transactions: transaction 1 - transaction 2 - transaction 3 - transaction 4.
Wait for final transaction to confirm, then open Solana wallet to verify tokens are in your account.
Web3 approve the transaction from your wallet — this requires paying a gas fee.
Wait for the transaction to propagate on chain. This can take time. You can view the transaction details in your wallet — the tutorial transaction wraps ETH and transfer it.
[01:06 - 01:56] Redeem the tokens.
Verify recipient address is correct, then choose Redeem.
Web3 approve the redemption transaction.
In this case, since my target network is Solana, I approved four transactions in order to complete the process. In the fourth transaction I see the 0.1 ETH I bridged specified in the transaction details.
My transactions: transaction 1 - transaction 2 - transaction 3 - transaction 4.
Wait for final transaction to confirm, then open Solana wallet to verify tokens are in your account.
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