How to Bridge from ETH to Solana: Basics & Common Mistakes

Learn how to bridge from ETH to solana along with a review of the basics and how to find crypto tracking on one platform for over 120 currencies. Read along to learn more.

What is Bridging in Crypto?

It is a term that is used for the process of moving assets or data between two or more blocks inside the blockchain environment. This moving of data makes it possible to integrate tokens, information, or functions, making it easier for users to shift these items between different blockchains. Bridging, as the term explains itself, enables different blockchain networks to work together, which possess their unique attributes, functionalities, and, not to mention, attached users.

Bridging has many direct applications in the crypto world; it improves liquidity within and between the networks since assets in one blockchain can be accessed/utilized in another blockchain network. It also provides support for cross-chain DeFi technology, which means that DeFi apps that run across various blockchains are enabled through this technology. You also get lower gas fees, as this technology enables third-party services attached to leading stablecoin networks like Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain.

What is Solana?

Founded by Anatoly Yakovenko back in 2017, Solana is a well-established decentralized blockchain platform that is now known for its low transaction costs while providing high throughput (due to the mempool-less forwarding protocol) in transactions.

Backed by several innovative technologies, this network can process thousands of transactions per second or TPS. It also features horizontal scaling, which enables easy growth while keeping the performance in check thanks to Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance, also termed Tower BFT.

How to bridge from ETH to Solana

Considering the already established value of ETH in the crypto world and the performance and efficiency metrics of the Solana network, it is natural to bridge two networks to get the above-stated practical applications.

To do this, one needs cross-bridges, which are tools designed to enable the seamless transfer of data between different blockchain networks. Some of the most popular bridges include Wormhole, Polygon Bridge, xPollinate, Anyswap, Binance Bridge, and RenBridge. We will use Wormhole as an example to demonstrate how to carry out the bridging:

1. First things first, you will need MetaMask for Ethereum and Phantom or Sollet for Solana. Next, you need to have enough dough in your MetaMask wallet to cover transaction fees.

2. Head to the Wormhole Bridge website, where you will be asked to connect your wallets from both networks.

3. Next, choose ETH as the asset you want to transfer in this bridging transaction and enter a desired amount, and once prompted, approve the transaction.

4. Once all set, the Wormhole bridge will automatically lock your designated number of ETH on the Ethereum network following the immediate minting of equivalent wrapped tokens or WETH on the Solana network.

5. Once minting and transfer is complete, verify the total number of WETH being received in the Phantom wallet which is bridged Ethereum on another network. Cool, isn’t it?

6. You can use this bridged currency on the Solana ecosystem or even swap it for any other Solana-native token of your liking (Serum, Raydium, etc.)

Common Mistakes While Bridging to Solana:

The process to bridge from eth to solana is pretty straightforward with very little complication but the most common mistake made during this process is not keeping in check the network congestion timings. This can significantly increase the gas fees during the bridging process and can result in deductions for the bridged ETH arriving in the wallets on the Salona network. Other common mistakes include insufficient token currencies, the selection of the wrong networks and attempting to bridge unsupportive tokens.

We advise you to have a subscription from a reliable Blockchain Explorer with support for multiple currencies like the Tokenview crypto explorer. With support for more than 120 cryptocurrencies and all the essential services and APIs needed for developing a crypto-based project, Tokenview is a one-stop solution, period.

Wrapping Up:

The above-stated generalized method showing how to bridge from ETH to Solana is pretty straightforward but requires you to keep in check the network congestions and to use a reliable currency explorer to be one step closer to both ETH and Salona networks.