Sorry for the n00b question... So, I use MetaMask to hold a few coins. In my MetaMask BSC account, I also have some ETH coins. Are my coins actually represented in the original Ethereum blockchain with a specific Ethereum address with the same ETH amount? How are BSC and Ethereum connected in order to support these functions?
1 Answer
Your question errs towards a more general question: how can non native tokens be contained on a different network?
In the case of binance smart chain or BSC; this smart chain is in fact a hard fork of Ethereum - as such, whilst the consensus mechanism for the chain differs, the underlying code representing tokens has a similar enough architecture, allowing the chain to host 'ERC20' tokens (including Ethereum).
In other cases (think, BTC to ETH) where the blockchain itself is different, tokens are 'wrapped' so as to allow their existence on a different chain. This essentially means 1BTC (for example) is 'wrapped' in a little packet of code which allows nodes and miners on the Ethereum chain to hold, transfer and receive the wrapped tokens.
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Thanks for the answer. So, if the BSC is a hard fork of Ethereum, does that mean that BSC maintains a different ledger than the actual Ethereum, or it maintains a branch extension of the actual Ethereum ledger, or it maintains a totally new ledger instance? Commented Dec 27, 2022 at 11:19
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After the fork, the BSC chain grows into a different ledger as time goes on Commented Dec 28, 2022 at 10:19