Across careers

Across is the fastest, cheapest, and most secure bridge between L1 and L2.

It takes a long time for you to move funds from Layer 2s (like Arbitrum and Optimism) to Layer 1. It would be convenient if someone on L1 would just lend you the money for a small fee until the bridged funds arrived. You would have the experience of an instant transfer.
Across Protocol solves this problem by insuring transactions. Individuals can profit by guaranteeing that the person lending the funds on L1 will actually send the loan.
It turns out that this method of cross-chain transfer is actually cheaper than other bridge solutions.
The bridging function works by offering incentives for relayers to offer short-term loans to users on L1, which are repaid after two hours from a liquidity pool on L1. This pool is refilled when the funds arrive from L2 transactions. These transactions are insured by UMA’s Optimistic Oracle.
This bridging method is faster, and we believe, more secure.