After I mute the group chat, I feel a lot more at peace… I watch the market and the gossip less, and somehow I can put my attention back on those boring questions like “who exactly this cross-chain is trusting in the end.”

IBC sounds sophisticated—message passing, after all—but put plainly, it’s basically: you have to trust both chains not to mess things up yourself, trust the light client/verification mechanism not to go wrong, and also trust the relayer (the one that relays messages) not to stall you—plus you need to trust that the frontend and routing you’re using don’t lead you to something weird.

As for bridges, they’re even more straightforward: with more custody, multi-signatures, and operations, the trust surface suddenly gets bigger.

Recently, hardware wallets have been out of stock again, and phishing links have been coming up at a high rate. So before I do any cross-chain transfers, I think through the source of the links three times. I’d rather be a bit slower—anyway, I’m not here to chase thrills. Just take your time and wait it out.