Understanding Bridging Mechanisms

The mev-commit chain utilizes a standard bridging mechanism to ensure a secure and efficient transfer of ETH between mainnet Ethereum and the mev-commit chain.

We envision mev-commit to eventually integrate with a multitude of interoperability protocols (think wormhole, layerzero, etc.). In the meantime Primev has implemented its own lock/mint bridging protocol as described below.

Lock/Mint Peg

Native ETH on the mev-commit chain maintains a 1:1 peg with ETH on L1. The only way to mint ETH on the mev-commit chain is to lock an equivalent amount on L1. ETH can be burned on the mev-commit chain to release/receive an equivalent amount on L1.

Security

There are inherent security assumptions in bridging ETH to the mev-commit chain. While these are similar to other bridge trust assumptions, we’ve listed them below:

  • Liveness of the bridge relayer actor.
  • POA signers that maintain mev-commit chain state.
  • Correctness of Primev’s standard bridge protocol and integration into the mev-commit chain.

Our standard bridge implementation has been audited by Cantina. More details can be found here.

Importance of Origin Chain Security

Selective Bridging: Only bridges originating from Ethereum L1 should be allowed to mint native ETH on the mev-commit chain. This is to prevent the impact of compromised states on other chains affecting the mev-commit chain.

Bridge Contracts

See Bridge Contracts section of contracts page to gain context on contracts necessary to enable bridging.

Relayer

The main off-chain component of the bridge is the relayer. Primev currently operates the relayer, with open-sourced implementation here.