acrossbridge fills usually arrive in seconds if a relayer can cover your route; if yours is delayed, check its status before sending again. An acrossbridge transfer locks your tokens on the sending chain while Across Bridge relayers pay the receiving wallet. If nobody fills by the deadline, a slower refund process begins.
What Across Bridge Is and How It Works
It is a non-custodial, intent-based bridge between supported blockchains. Non-custodial means your wallet signs the transfer and your deposit enters a smart contract, rather than an exchange account. An intent is your request for a specific token and amount to reach a specific wallet on another chain.
A relayer is a party that delivers its own tokens on the destination chain. Once your deposit confirms, a relayer can fill your request without waiting for those deposited tokens to cross chains. The protocol repays the relayer later, using deposits and liquidity pools, which are shared stores of tokens.
Repayment batches pass through the UMA Optimistic Oracle. This system accepts a proposed batch unless someone challenges it during a review window. Your wallet stays under your control, but the transfer still depends on smart contracts and that review process.
How to Bridge Tokens With Across Bridge
Connect your wallet, choose the sending and receiving chains, then select a supported token and amount. Check the receiving address and the exact token shown for the destination chain. The same ticker can appear on different token contracts.
Read the quote before signing. It shows what you should receive, the fee, route limits, expected fill time, and fill deadline. That deadline is the last moment a relayer can deliver; fees vary with gas costs and available funds.
Say you move 1,000 USDC from Optimism to Ethereum and the quote promises 997 USDC. The illustrative 3 USDC difference is 0.3%; your wallet may show sending-chain gas separately. Gas is the network charge for recording a transaction, paid in that chain’s native coin.
If your wallet asks you to approve USDC first, that transaction only gives the contract spending permission. You must still sign the deposit. Keep its transaction hash, the identifying code you can use to check the transfer later.
What to Do When a Fill Is Delayed
Check the sending-chain transaction first, then the deposit’s tracking status. A confirmed approval is not a deposit, and a failed deposit leaves nothing for a relayer to fill. If the deposit succeeded, enter its transaction hash in the transfer’s status tracker.
Pending means the deposit exists but no relayer has paid the destination wallet yet. Status tracking can lag the chain by 1–15 seconds, so check again before treating a short wait as a problem. Large transfers, limited funds on a route, or relayer downtime can cause longer delays; compare the wait with your quoted fill deadline.
Filled means the tokens reached the named recipient on the destination chain. Switch your wallet to that chain and check the token if the balance looks empty. If you entered another receiving address, your own wallet will not display those funds.
Expired means the deadline passed without a fill and a refund is due. Refunded means the return transaction completed, usually to the sending wallet unless another refund address was set. Settlement and review can take several hours, so keep tracking the original deposit instead of sending it again.
How a Canonical Bridge Compares
A chain’s canonical bridge follows that chain’s own settlement rules; a relayer-funded transfer can deliver sooner. For example, a withdrawal from Optimism to Ethereum through its canonical bridge has a seven-day challenge period. A fast fill avoids that wait for the recipient, but depends on the quoted route, fee, and available relayer funds.
I would compare the exact token received, total cost, time, and refund path before choosing. If I needed the funds soon, I would use a fast route within its quoted limit and keep the transaction hash until the status showed filled.