HostDeFi HostDeFi › Guides › Bridge-wrapped token custody risk
The "ETH" in your Solana wallet isn't ether. It's a receipt for ether that somebody else is guarding on your behalf — and the guard's competence is now your risk.
Educational guide · reviewed August 2026 · not financial advice
Cross-chain assets are so convenient that it's easy to forget what they physically are. When bitcoin appears on Ethereum or ether appears on Solana, nothing moved — assets can't leave their native chain. What you hold instead is a wrapper: a locally minted token whose value rests entirely on a promise that the real thing sits locked in a vault somewhere else, and that you can get it back. This guide is about the custody behind that promise — who guards the vault, how vaults have been emptied, why five tokens with the same ticker can be five different promises, and how to check which promise you're actually holding.
Which wrapper is this, exactly?
