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7.2/10
Crypto Bridges
Company file: Across Protocol, owners, incidents →
Across
An intent-based design where relayers front the capital and wait for settlement themselves, rather than locking user funds in a bridge contract for the duration. The record is no longer clean: DefiLlama lists a $4.5M exploit of the Solana deployment on 17 Jul 2026, and Across had published no post-mortem by 27 Sep 2026. In 2026 the protocol also moved from a DAO to a US company, Across, Inc.
Best for: Fast transfers with relayers fronting the capital
Company file: Across Protocol, owners, incidents →How this score was reached
7.2 is the weighted average of the five pillar findings below, minus one published deduction. Dependable, with trade-offs a reader should know about first.
- Custody & Security45%
- 7.4
- Cost & Fee Transparency15%
- 8.2
- Regulation & Legal Standing5%
- 6.2
- Performance & Reliability25%
- 8.0
- Access & Support10%
- 8.4
Relayers front their own capital, so user funds are not held in a large pooled contract for the trip; settlement is secured by UMA’s optimistic oracle. On 17 Jul 2026 a forged event log on the Solana deployment was accepted as a real cross-chain message, a $4.5M exploit per DefiLlama. No post-mortem and no statement on who bore the loss as of 27 Sep 2026.
Fees are quoted up front as the difference between what you send and what arrives: LP fee, relayer gas and capital fee, plus an optional integrator fee.
Unlicensed. Owned since 2026 by Across, Inc., a private US C-corporation; ACX loses all governance and economic function after 8 Jan 2027, with a buyout at $0.04375 per token.
Relayers usually fill in about two seconds per the docs. Liquidity in the Ethereum hub pool was about $22.3M on 27 Sep 2026, against a peak of about $249M in Dec 2024.
Clean interface with clear pre-transfer cost and time estimates.
Deductions applied
- −0.5Material fact undisclosed. The operator publishes nothing at all on a question this rubric asks — no fee schedule, no reserve or audit disclosure, no named operating entity. Silence is a finding, and it is scored as one.
Strengths
- Relayers front the capital, so there is no large pool of user funds in transit
- Fills in about two seconds on supported routes
- Fees quoted up front with each component documented
Against it
- $4.5M exploit of the Solana deployment on 17 Jul 2026, with no post-mortem published
- Hub-pool liquidity down about 91% from its Dec 2024 peak
- Now owned by a private company; ACX governance ends 8 Jan 2027
No honeypot, but no longer a clean record
Bridges get exploited because they concentrate value behind a trust assumption weaker than the chains they connect. Across changes the shape of the problem: relayers front their own capital and wait for settlement, so user funds are not pooled in a contract for the trip.
On 17 Jul 2026 that model still lost money. DefiLlama records a $4.5M exploit of the Solana deployment, in which a forged event log was accepted as a real cross-chain message. As of 27 Sep 2026 Across had published no post-mortem and nothing on who bore the loss, which is why custody fell and a disclosure penalty applies. If a post-mortem shows users or LPs were not made whole, the fund-loss penalty would apply as well. Separately, the protocol now belongs to Across, Inc., a private US company, and ACX will have no function after 8 Jan 2027.
Frequently asked questions
How is Across different from other bridges?+
Relayers advance their own capital to fill your transfer and wait for settlement themselves, rather than your funds sitting locked in a bridge contract. There is no large pooled honeypot, which is where nearly every major bridge loss has come from.
Has Across been hacked?+
Yes, once on record: DefiLlama lists a $4.5M exploit of its Solana deployment on 17 Jul 2026. Across had not published a post-mortem by 27 Sep 2026, so it is not known whether users, LPs or relayers bore the loss.
What happens to ACX?+
Holders can sell at $0.04375 per token in USDC, or swap into Across, Inc. equity above 250K ACX with KYC, until 8 Jan 2027. After that the token has no governance, utility or economic function. Bridge users do not need ACX.
Assessed by
By James Park
NFT & Web3 Gaming Analyst · September 27, 2026
◆ Disclosure
CoinRadar Daily is a non-commercial project. We have no commercial relationship with Across, earn nothing from any link on this page, and carry no advertising or sponsorship anywhere on the site. Findings rest on public sources; we did not open an account or transact.
Rubric v2.0How we score →
The rest of the crypto bridges table
- 02Across — you are hereFast transfers with relayers fronting the capital7.2
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