Two transfers of the same amount between the same chains can take 30 seconds or 15 minutes. The difference is not luck; it is which chain's finality the bridge waits for and whether a relayer fronts the money.
Finality
A chain's block is final when it can no longer be reorganized. Ethereum reaches finality in about 13 minutes (two epochs); a bridge that must be sure the deposit cannot be undone waits that long. Rollups such as Base and Arbitrum post to Ethereum, and many bridges accept their soft confirmations within a minute or two. Solana finalizes in seconds.
Who pays out
If the destination side is paid by a relayer from its own inventory, you get the tokens as soon as the relayer sees your deposit, long before finality; the relayer takes the waiting risk and prices it into the fee. If the destination side is minted by the bridge contract itself, it waits.
What the route card shows
The time on a route is the bridge's own upper estimate, often much more than the typical case; Soheil shows it as "up to" and marks the fastest route. The tracking panel then shows the real progress step by step.
While you wait
Funds in flight are held by the bridge's contracts, not lost. You can close the page; the Activity page and the transaction hash let you pick the transfer up later, and the explorer link shows the destination side when it lands. If a transfer is still open well past the estimate, the bridge's own status page (linked from the partner list) is the place to look.
Do it
More guides
- How to bridge to Hyperliquid (HyperEVM) from any chain
- How to buy TAO (Bittensor) with any token
- Health factor explained: how to borrow without being liquidated
- What a swap or bridge really costs: every fee, explained
Information, not financial advice. Soheil.fi is non-custodial; every transaction is signed in your own wallet.