Hop vs Native Bridges
Hop vs Native Polygon Bridge
In this first section, we'll compare the statistics of Hop directly with the native bridges of layers 2s. For each layer 2 there's a total of six graphs, two for each metric listed in the introduction. The first graph of each metric will contain daily data while the second graph will show the 30-day moving averages to better show trends in the data.
Introduction
Hop is an Ethereum bridge that allow users to transfer their assets from Ethereum mainnet to a layer 2 on Ethereum. Hop currently supports Polygon, Gnosis, Optimism and Arbitrum. All these layer 2 blockchains also support their own native bridge to transfer assets to the respective chain. In this dashboard we'll compare Hop with the native bridges of Polygon, Optimism and Arbitrum using 3 metrics:
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Unique users: the daily number of unique users that use the bridge to transfer assets.
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Frequency of use: the daily number of unique transactions that the bridge handles.
-
Average amount of assets moved: the daily average that each transaction on the bridge moves.
In order to keep the scope of this comparison within reach (it is already quite long), we'll only compare transfers of ETH and look at transactions since the beginning of 2022.
Finally, we'll answer the question if whales are using Hop or the native bridges to move funds to layers 2s.
Are Whales using Hop?
In order to determine if whales are using Hop more than the native bridges to bridge assets to layers 2, we look at the total account balance for each user that has bridged to an L2 using a specific bridge. We define whales as users who have over $1M worth of assets in their wallets. We then look at how many whales have used each bridge since 2022.
- On Polygon, there are 30 vs 3222 or 0.525% vs 1.14% whales for Hop and the native bridge respectively. This means that significantly more whales are using the native bridge on Polygon.
- On Optimism, there are 90 vs 407 or 0.669% vs 0.909% whales for Hop and the native bridge respectively. This means that there are quite a few more whales using the native bridge on Optimism.
- On Arbitrum, there are 117 vs 662 or 0.42% vs 0.537% whales for Hop and the native bridge respectively. This means that the number of whales using both Hop and the native bridge is quite comparable on Arbitrum in terms of percentage.
Key findings
- On Polygon, the daily number of unique users and transactions is significantly larger on the native bridge of Polygon compared to Hop. However, the daily average ETH transaction size is larger on Hop compared to the native Bridge.
- On Optimism, the daily number of unique and transaction is also larger on the native bridge compared to Hop, but not as significantly as with Polygon. The average amount of ETH bridges about the same for some time, but the average amount on the native bridge has increased significantly since mid-May.
- There was a significant increase in unique users and frequency of use of Hop on Arbitrum over the last days. On June 22th, there were more than 12x more users using Hop as suppose to the native Arbitrum bridge.
- There are significantly more whales using the native bridge on Polygon and Optimism compared to Hop. On Arbitrum the number of whales is comparable.
Methodology
- ETH transfers using Hop: retrieved using the
ethereum.core.fact_event_logs
table in combination with the contract address of the ETH bridge of Hop:0xb8901acB165ed027E32754E0FFe830802919727f
. We then filter forevent_name = 'TransferSentToL2'
and retreive the receiving chain using137 = Polygon, 10 = Optimism, 42161 = Arbitrum
- ETH transfers using native bridge on Polygon: retrieved using the
ethereum.core.fact_event_logs
table in combination with the contract address of the ETH bridge of the native bridge of Polygon:0x8484ef722627bf18ca5ae6bcf031c23e6e922b30
. We then filter forevent_name = 'LockedEther'
. - ETH transfers using native bridge on Optimism: retrieved using the
ethereum.core.fact_event_logs
table in combination with the contract address of the ETH bridge of the native bridge of Optimism:0x99C9fc46f92E8a1c0deC1b1747d010903E884bE1
. We then filter forevent_name is null
. The amount of ETH transferred was retrieved usingtokenflow_eth.hextoint(substr(data,3,64))/1e18
. - ETH transfers using native bridge on Arbitrum: retrieved using the
flipside_prod_db.ethereum.udm_events
table in combination with the contract address of the Arbitrum Inbox:0x4Dbd4fc535Ac27206064B68FfCf827b0A60BAB3f
. We then filter for ETH usingorigin_function_name = 'depositEth'
We can see that there are significantly more users of the native Polygon bridge compared to Hop. We do see the daily number of unique users of the native bridge quickly decrease however.
The same goes for the frequency of use or daily transactions: significantly more on the native bridge compared to Hop.
It is clear that the average amount of ETH bridged is significantly larger on Hop compared to the native Polygon bridge. About 2.5x when comparing the current values of the 30-day moving averages.
We can see that the daily number of unique users is larger on the native bridge of Optimism. Even on June 1st, when there was a peak in the daily number of unique users, the native bridge still attracted more users.
Again, the same goes for the daily number of transactions.
We can see that the daily average of ETH bridged to Optimism was quite close most of the time. However, since mid-May, the average transaction size on the native bridge of Optimism has increased significantly. The 30-day MA of the native bridge is currently about 4x larger compared to Hop.
It is clear that there has been a significant increase in daily unique users of Hop on Arbitrum. However, the 30-day moving average is still much lower.
Again, the same goes for the number of transactions.
The daily average amount of ETH bridged using the native bridge of Arbitrum had been twice as high as Hop most of the time. We can also see that the 30-day moving averages seem to follow the same trend just offset slightly.