Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) has entered general availability with the aim of fostering more cross-chain connectivity.

The protocol lets developers permissionlessly use CCIP for cross-chain token transfers and arbitrary smart contract messaging across different blockchain networks.

Developers will also be able to send and trigger function calls on smart contracts deployed on other blockchains, making cross-chain smart contracts more interoperable.

CCIP’s mainnet general availability will enable a faster and easier implementation for developers, bolstering cross-chain connectivity, according to Sergey Nazarov, co-founder of Chainlink.

In an announcement shared with Cointelegraph, Nazarov wrote:

“CCIP is now starting to become the standard for both capital markets blockchain transactions across banks, as well as the way that secure Web3 cross-chain value and data is moved across public chains.”

Cross-chain bridges help users facilitate transactions between different blockchain networks. They represent some of the most significant points of vulnerability in crypto.

Chainlink is among the largest firms working on cross-chain interoperability, which is among the most pressing shortcomings of the industry — since individual blockchain networks have no means to communicate with each other without interoperability solutions.

At the beginning of April, Chainlink launched Transporter , a cross-chain messaging app for bridging tokens, aiming to foster more secure cross-chain crypto transfers with a beginner-friendly app interface.

Chainlink’s Transporter is underpinned by CCIP, which is “the only cross-chain protocol that achieves level-5 security,” according to a Chainlink spokesperson.

CCIP is available on nine blockchains, including Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, BNB Chain, Ethereum, Kroma, Optimism, Polygon and WEMIX, with plans to integrate more networks.

CCIP aims to help financial institutions unlock the $500 trillion opportunity in tokenized assets, by offering better liquidity access for cross-chain assets, a Chainlink spokesperson told Cointelegraph:

"CCIP is part of a larger Chainlink platform that enables financial institutions to fully unlock tokenized assets by helping them overcome their data, cross-chain, compliance, and synchronization needs.

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Cross-chain interoperability remains a pressing industry concern

Due to their technical complexity, cross-chain bridges represent some of the biggest points of vulnerability in today’s crypto protocols.

Since 2016, over $5.85 billion worth of cryptocurrency has been stolen from decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. Cross-chain bridges account for over 48%, or $2.83 billion, of the total value lost to exploits, according to DefiLlama data.

Chainlink debuts new protocol aimed at boosting cross-chain interoperability image 0 Total value hacked since 2016. Source: DefiLlama

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has criticized cross-chain infrastructure in the past. In a Reddit post from January 2022, Buterin shared his concerns about how 51% attacks on cross-chain bridges will become more prevalent in the future:

“The more usage of cross-chain bridges and apps there is, the worse the problem becomes. No one will 51% attack Ethereum just to steal 100 Solana-WETH... But if there are 10 million ETH or SOL in the bridge, then the motivation to make an attack becomes much higher, and large pools may well coordinate to make the attack happen.”

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