On Saturday, POA Network (POA) revealed that “the launch of the first production cross-chain bridge in blockchain history [will go live] on May 10th.” Such a feat will soon mean that users will harness the ability to send POA tokens back and forth between the POA network and the Ethereum network.

The breakthrough announcement introduces the notion of POA Bridge and POA20. The two are intrinsically tied, with the POA Bridge – a decentralized application built on the POA Network – to serve as a conduit for both the POA and Ethereum blockchains, and the Ethereum-based POA20 token to represent the equivalent value of the native POA coin(s) sent from the proof-of-authority (PoA) blockchain.

Per Saturday’s announcement, this never-before-seen POA cross-chain bridge “serves as a method of transferring POA native tokens from the POA Network to the Ethereum network in a quick and cost-efficient manner.”

No Fees, Wait Time Under A Minute

For the duration of the trial period, users won’t be charged for transactions, with fees covered by reserves held by the POA Network. Regarding transactional speed, the team states that “the wait time per transfer is under 1 minute!”

Self-Correcting Transfers

This is what happens when an entity, using MetaMask, sends value between the POA Network and the Ethereum blockchain (and vice versa):

POA to Ethereum = POA20 Token Is Minted ; Native POA Coin Frozen

Ethereum to POA = POA20 Token Is Burned ; Native POA Coin Unlocked

POA20 Mimics ERC20

It’s worth noting that the POA20 token shares identical properties with Ethereum’s standard ERC20 token, making for a seamless interaction with anything that’s ERC20 compatible (e.g. digital wallets).

Two Exchanges Supporting POA20 ; More Have Confirmed

In order to trade these POA20 tokens, exchanges must specifically list it. Per Saturday’s announcement, both Bancor Network and IDEX have, along with others not yet identified due to NDAs.

Ethereum Interoperability Done, What Now?

The (recently rebranded) POA Network, which believes that “cross-chain bridge technology has the power to become that scalability-through-connectivity solution” are certainly hitting their strides.

The POA team is seeing impressive growth of their dApp ecosystem. Likewise, their roadmap is fast approaching completion. By the year’s end, POA Network is expected to have achieved their ultimate goal of becoming “a platform with multiple PoA networks connected by interledger protocols.”