The cross-chain landscape has long relied on bridges and wrapped tokens—a solution that stacks complexity upon complexity. Each additional layer introduces new vulnerabilities and failure points that compound the risk.

There's a different approach emerging. Some protocols are moving away from this model entirely. Rather than routing assets through bridges or creating synthetic versions, they're keeping native assets truly native across chains.

The beauty here is in the incentive design. If a transaction fails to complete, the protocol's built-in incentive mechanisms automatically step in to finish what was started. It's a cleaner mechanism—fewer intermediaries, fewer assumptions, fewer things that can unexpectedly break down.

This shift from wrapped complexity to native simplicity could be the next evolution in how blockchains actually communicate with each other.