Chainlink launches CCIP 2.0 with custom bridge security checks
Chainlink has released CCIP 2.0, letting firms add their own verifiers to cross-chain transfers. The upgrade comes five months after a $292 million hack at a rival bridge that relied on a single verifier.
Key points
- Chainlink released Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol 2.0 on Monday, adding optional custom security checks to cross-chain transfers.
- The launch follows April's $292 million Kelp DAO hack, blamed on a LayerZero bridge setup that used a single verifier.
- Chainlink's default network of 16 independent node operators still checks every transfer, and users can run their own verifiers or hire providers such as Infosys and Nethermind.
- The Risk Management Network no longer acts as a separate safeguard, so users who add nothing appear to rely on one verification network instead of two.
- Existing users were moved automatically, but Chainlink has not named any institution using the new verifiers; Aave and Maple have adopted other features.
Chainlink has released CCIP 2.0, an upgrade to its cross-chain bridge technology that lets companies add their own security checks to transfers between blockchains. The launch came on Monday, five months after the year's biggest DeFi hack, which was blamed on a bridge that relied on a single verifier. Chainlink is best known as an oracle network, feeding blockchains outside data such as asset prices that lending and trading apps depend on. CCIP, first launched in 2023, extends that work into moving tokens and messages between chains.