Lock-and-Mint
A bridge mechanism that locks an asset on its source chain and mints a corresponding wrapped version on the destination chain.
Lock-and-mint is a cross-chain bridge mechanism (see Kaavon's "Cross-Chain Bridge" glossary definition) where an asset is locked in a smart contract on its source chain, and a corresponding wrapped token (see Kaavon's "Wrapped Token" glossary definition) is minted on the destination chain, representing a claim on the locked original.
The wrapped token's trustworthiness depends entirely on the bridge continuing to actually hold the locked original asset — if the bridge is compromised or the locked funds are stolen, the wrapped token on the destination chain can lose its backing even though it continues to exist and trade.
Examples
- A lock-and-mint bridge's wrapped token is only as trustworthy as the bridge's continued, verifiable custody of the original locked asset.
- Reversing a lock-and-mint bridge transfer generally means burning the wrapped token on the destination chain to unlock the original asset back on the source chain.