Cross-chain Bridges Market Overview and Leading Protocols Analysis

As the DeFi heat in the crypto market rises, on-chain activities are also increasing. In the process of connecting different blockchain networks, cross-chain bridges play a key role. The activity of cross-chain bridges not only reflects the overall heat of on-chain activities but also authentically presents the interaction needs between different chains. This article will comprehensively review the performance of major cross-chain bridges since the beginning of this year.

Market Overview: Trading volume has been increasing year by year, while the number of trades remains stable.

The overall data on cross-chain bridges shows that they will enter an active period starting from the end of 2024. The total cross-chain transaction volume in September 2024 is approximately $18.6 billion, which rapidly increases to $50 billion by November, a growth of 188%. After entering 2025, the activity level continues to remain high.

In July, which just ended, the on-chain cross-chain transaction volume reached a historical high of 56.1 billion USD. However, a deeper analysis reveals that this increase in transaction volume is mainly driven by large transactions. In terms of the number of transactions, the monthly transaction volume in May 2024 reached 15.12 million, while it remained around 14.47 million by November 2024, not significantly increasing with the surge in transaction amounts. According to calculations, the average single on-chain transaction amount in May 2024 was approximately 1,051 USD, which grew to 3,489 USD by November 2024, marking an increase of 231%.

The main reason behind this change may be that from 2024 to early 2025, certain public chains triggered fluctuations in user activity due to specific hot topics, leading to frequent changes in small on-chain funds. Since April 2025, these hot topics have gradually cooled down, but the market has welcomed more financially strong mature participants. This has led on-chain activities to gradually shift from high-frequency, small-scale interactions to larger-scale capital allocation and transfer.

Public Chain Liquidity Analysis

This year's capital flow across various public chains shows that Ethereum remains the absolute leader in cross-chain transactions. Whether in inflow, outflow, or net flow, Ethereum ranks first, with a net inflow of 10.1 billion USD since the beginning of the year, nearly 8 times that of the second-ranked public chain.

Sonic unexpectedly became the second-ranked public chain in net inflow, with a total net inflow of approximately $1.279 billion. Its net outflow amount is very small, and the vast majority of cross-chain activities are inflows. However, this may mainly be due to statistical deviations caused by the migration of old chain assets to the new chain, and it does not fully reflect its true activity level.

In terms of net outflow, Base ranks first with a net outflow of 5 billion USD. This may be related to the recent capital attraction effect of the Ethereum mainnet. Over the past three months, the funds flowing to Ethereum from Base amounted to 5.9 billion, even exceeding the total net outflow from the beginning of the year to date.

Another noteworthy point is that Starknet's cross-chain activities seem to be quite active. Both inflows and outflows rank second, with a trading volume of about half that of the Ethereum mainnet.

Market Landscape of Leading Protocols and Applications

In terms of cross-chain messaging protocols, LayerZero remains the leading project currently. In the past month, the cross-chain transaction amount completed through LayerZero reached $4.965 billion, accounting for nearly half of the total cross-chain transaction volume for the month. Circle CCTP ranked second in transaction volume in the last month, reaching $3.8 billion, closely related to the rapid growth of USDC. Furthermore, the well-established cross-chain protocol giant Wormhole ranked third, while the emerging Hyperlane ranked fourth.

In terms of cross-chain bridge applications, Hyperliquid has become the most active cross-chain bridge recently, with a monthly trading volume of approximately $4.965 billion. Although Hyperliquid's cross-chain structure is relatively simple, mainly involving the flow of stablecoin funds between Hyperliquid and Arbitrum, the current trading popularity of Hyperliquid and the lack of native stablecoins have resulted in most deposit and withdrawal operations relying on cross-chain bridges, which has propelled Hyperliquid's leading position in cross-chain bridge applications.

The second-ranked cross-chain bridge is USDT0, but its inclusion on the list may be mainly due to statistical criteria. The data panel counts "issuer-level minting and burning migration" as part of the "cross-chain bridge traffic", meaning that the exchanges and issuances of USDT across various chains are counted as cross-chain transaction volume.

Core Protocol Analysis: Differentiated Competition Among Three Major Projects

The cross-chain bridges ranked third to fifth are Across, StarGate, and deBridge. These three projects better represent the current market status of cross-chain bridge protocols.

Across

Across's trading volume in the past month is approximately $1.4 billion, with about 20,000 transactions. Across is a cross-chain bridges protocol based on UMA's Optimistic oracle. In March of this year, it completed a $41 million financing round with participation from several well-known institutions.

In May, Across integrated with the BSC ecosystem and launched a one-click cross-chain token swap feature for some DEXs, experiencing continuous growth with the popularity of the BSC chain. In July, the V4 version upgrade was released, significantly shortening the time required to support new chains. Currently, the average daily trading volume is approximately $46 million, about double that of early 2024. The average size of a single cross-chain transaction on Across is approximately $4,718, supporting 19 chains.

Across's development strategy focuses on collaborating with leading DEXs, integrating "cross-chain" into the "token swapping process", and accelerating the addition of new chains through the V4 version.

StarGate

StarGate is a composable liquidity transfer protocol built on the LayerZero messaging layer. The trading volume has been approximately $990 million in the past month.

In 2025, StarGate will focus on launching the V2 version, introducing optimization measures and the Hydra mechanism. Hydra achieves liquidity expansion from mature chains to emerging chains by locking native assets and minting fully homogenous tokens on the target chain. This innovation allows new chains to access liquidity for various mainstream tokens directly through Hydra without the need to pre-deploy large capital pools. One of StarGate's main advantages is the large number of supported chains, which the official claims currently stands at 80.

However, StarGate's governance token STG has performed poorly, continuing to decline since the beginning of 2024. In August 2025, the LayerZero Foundation proposed an acquisition plan of approximately $110 million, intending to dissolve the StarGate DAO and deactivate the STG token. This proposal sparked controversy within the community, with many believing that the offer significantly undervalued StarGate's worth.

deBridge

deBridge is a universal messaging protocol whose security is ensured by an independent network of validators. In the past month, the trading volume was approximately $814 million, with a total of over $13.4 billion settled in transactions.

deBridge is one of the more profitable cross-chain bridges, with a revenue of $2.96 million in the first quarter of 2025 and $2.06 million in the second quarter, with an annualized expected fee of over $19 million. On July 24, the deBridge Foundation announced the launch of a reserve fund, allocating all protocol revenue to buy back its native token DBR. This news led to significant short-term fluctuations in the price of DBR, but failed to stabilize the market in the long term.

Market Outlook

The cross-chain bridges market in 2025 presents a complex pattern of "macroeconomic prosperity and microeconomic differentiation." The overall cross-chain transaction volume has reached a historic high, with Ethereum becoming the largest capital hub due to its strong consensus and liquidity. However, this prosperity is driven more by large transactions rather than a broad increase in user numbers, indicating that cross-chain activities are shifting from retail speculation to deeper capital flows.

The competition among cross-chain protocols has surpassed mere comparisons of transaction volume. Although some applications have performed impressively in terms of data, the core competition still focuses on major protocols such as Across, StarGate, and deBridge, which are engaging in comprehensive competition in areas such as technological architecture, ecosystem integration, and economic models. In the future, the cross-chain bridges market may further consolidate, while also facing more innovations and challenges.