Assets & Payments

Cross-Chain Bridge

The bridge carries AEY to other blockchains and brings it back, under rules that keep every guilder accounted for on Aletheia. AEY that leaves is held in escrow here, never destroyed, so the State's supply and its reserves always cover every holder, wherever they are.

Verified by A two-thirds quorum of guardians

Outbound AEY Held in bridge escrow, not burned

New routes Open paused, by governance

01 AEY leaving Aletheia

A holder sends AEY to a route. The AEY moves into the bridge escrow account and the supply ledger moves it from circulating to bridge escrow; nothing is created or destroyed. The outbound message is stored on chain with the route's next sequence number, and the remote chain issues the same amount there.

1 Sent The holder signs a bridge transfer naming the route, the remote recipient and the amount.
2 Checked Route open, asset allowed outbound, within limits, amount exactly convertible to the remote decimals.
3 Escrowed The AEY moves to bridge escrow; the fee goes to the fee pool.
4 Recorded The message is stored with the next sequence; a relayer carries it across.

02 AEY coming back

When AEY is returned on the remote chain, a relayer brings the message to Aletheia with an attestation from the route's guardians. Only a valid quorum, in the right order, before the message expires, releases AEY from escrow to the recipient.

1 Attested Guardians sign the message; at least two thirds of the set must sign.
2 Verified The aggregate signature, the destination, the route and the expiry are checked.
3 In sequence The message must be the route's next one: none skipped, none replayed.
4 Released The AEY leaves escrow to the recipient; bridge escrow falls by the same amount.

03 Safety controls

Limits per routeEvery route caps each transfer, the total moved per epoch, and its total exposure. Governance may raise a limit but never set it below what the route already carries.

Large transfers waitA transfer at or above the route's threshold is accepted but held for a delay before it settles. During the delay the guardians may flag it for review; a flagged transfer stays held.

Exact amounts onlyAn amount that cannot be expressed exactly in the remote token's decimals is refused. There is no rounding and no dust.

04 Pauses

What a pause doesIt stops new bridge messages only. It never moves or freezes balances already on Aletheia, and transfers already waiting still settle.

Who may pauseThe council, at once and until it resumes the route; or a quorum of the route's guardians, for a governed number of epochs, after which the pause lapses.

Automatic pauseIf a quorum ever signs two different messages for the same sequence, the conflicting proof itself pauses the route.

05 The accounting rules

After every block the chain checks three invariants. A block that would break any of them is refused by every validator.

I10The bridge escrow account, the supply ledger's bridge-escrow figure and the sum over all routes always agree.

I11A bridged asset's supply on Aletheia never exceeds what has been verifiably locked on the remote chain, minus what was released.

I12Every route stays within its per-epoch and exposure limits.

06 Routes and guardians

Routes and guardian sets are created only by governance, with a four-epoch notice, and every new route opens paused until the council resumes it. A guardian set needs at least seven members on production networks and a two-thirds threshold; each guardian's key is proven when the set is registered and again every time it signs. Light-client verification of remote chains is planned to join guardian verification in a later protocol version.