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The Pros and Cons of Binance Bridge (Compared to just sending via via the Binance Exchange)

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Zebedee
@revisesociology
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3 min read

I just added some ETH into the ETH DEN on Cub (and brought the return down by another 0.1%, sorry!) and used the opportunity to play around with the relatively new Binance Bridge to transfer said ETH from the Ethereum chain to Binance Smart Chain via my Metamask Wallet.

I tested the Binance Bridge out with 0.1 ETH, and it was easy enough to set up and use and the transfer went through in minutes rather than hours, but I still opted to send the bulk of the ETH via Binance exchange, because I felt like I had more control over the gas fees and thus speed of transactions on the ETH end.

The Binance Bridge Experience

After some initial reticence (I'm always paranoid about scams phishing my keys when I try anything new in crypto) the Binance Bridge was easy to use and worked just fine!

You're greeted with the home page below, and all you have to do is connect your wallet at the ETH end (I don't think you need to agree anything at the BSC end) and then you can swap. You must have your Metamask wallet connect to the Ethereum mainnet to make the swap from Eth and BSC Eth, and don't forget to add the token on the BSC end if you want to be able to see it (which I'd done previously)

You then get this message:

But NB the '0 fee' is a lie, because when you click through to approving the transaction, you do get a gas fee, which was $1.85, not too bad:

Besides the 'fake 0 network fee line' there are three further things I didn't like about the Binance Bridge experience...

Firstly I can't see any way to control the gas fees and thus the speed of transaction, it just seemed to default to $1.85 (the equivalent of 'medium speed' when I transferred direct from ETH to the Binance exchange). You might be able to up the gas fee when you click confirm, I can't remember, but I personally just prefer being given a 'fast' option on Metamask!

Secondly, you might need to swap in and out of the ETH and BSC mainnets to get it to work - when I first tried and I was connected to ETH, it didn't realise, so I switched back to BSC then back to ETH and it was fine! So it's a bit clunky ATM but I guess it's early days.

Thirdly, someone in the LEO Discord said one out of their six transactions 'went missing' and that they had to wait 10 hours for one transfer to go through!

All of that said, this was easy to use, albeit with a bit of excess clicking to get it to work, and my transfer did send successfully within a few minutes.

Compared to sending my ETH via the exchange

Having tried out the Binance Bridge I ended up transferring the bulk of my ETH through the regular means - transferring from ETH to the Binance central exchange and then from Binance to Smart Chain.

I did a test send for this as well as I had to set up a new address on Binance, never having transferred ETH in before, and again I used a 0.1 ETH test - i set the speed to maximum and the fee here was $2.54, so only $0.70 more expensive than the direct Cross Chain transfer.

Add on another $0.25 for getting my ETH to my BSC wallet from the exchange and that's $1 more.

Pros and Cons of Binance Bridge compared to Via Binance Exchange

To be honest I think this is a case of six of one and a half dozen of the other, given that it costs the same to transfer 0.1 ETH as it does 10 ETH.

I guess the Binance Bridge has two advantages over going via the exchange:

  • You don't have to leave any funds in an exchange wallet!
  • There are less stages and clicks involved, so it's easier.

HOWEVER, it was ultimately the guaranteed faster transfer times going via the exchange that led to me using that 'traditional method' - I'm not sure that Binance Bridge is really there yet in that regard, and I was aware of the risk of having to wait half a day to get my funds!

I think once it's evolved however, Binance Bridge, or any other type of bridge will be the way forwards for sure!

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta