In this dashboard, we will compare Hop Exchange bridge to the native bridges of the L2s Polygon, Optimism and Arbitrum.

Collecting the required data:

Hop Bridge, Native bridges involve depositing an asset on the mainnet side and then minting the corresponding asset on the L2. Hence to track bridges, we simply need to track the asset movement to the respective Bridge contracts. Now Polygon and Arbitrum have separate contracts for native ETH deposits and ERC20 token deposits. Optimism has a single contract for both, but also has a faster and cheaper execution contract for smaller ETH only deposits.

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for Optimism, the bridge contracts are:

• 0x99c9fc46f92e8a1c0dec1b1747d010903e884be1 - This is the native bridge, that has been used in general. Can handle both ETH and ERC20 tokens.
• 0x52ec2f3d7c5977a8e558c8d9c6000b615098e8fc - A new bridge to handle small sized ETH only deposits in a much more gas efficient way

for Polygon, the bridge contracts are:

• 0xa0c68c638235ee32657e8f720a23cec1bfc77c77 - handles native ETH bridges
• 0x40ec5b33f54e0e8a33a975908c5ba1c14e5bbbdf - handles ERC20 bridges

for Arbitrum, the bridge contracts are:

• 0x4dbd4fc535ac27206064b68ffcf827b0a60bab3f - handles native ETH bridges
• 0x72ce9c846789fdb6fc1f34ac4ad25dd9ef7031ef - handles ERC20 bridges

We can use ethereum.core.ez_eth_transfers for tracking ETH deposits and ethereum.core.ez_token_transfers for tracking ERC20 token deposits to the above contracts.

Now that we have got Native Bridge data,Lets grab the data of Hop Bridging. Rather than locking and unlocking assets in mainnet and minting and burning on the L2, Hop maintains liquidity on both sides of the chain to allow easy and smooth bridges, without any wait times.

As of now Hop supports 4 chains:

• Optimism - Chain ID 10
• Gnosis - Chain ID 100
• Polygon - Chain ID 137
• Arbitrum - Chain ID 42161

Hop also support 6 assets across the bridge:

• USDC
• USDT
• WETH
• WBTC
• DAI
• MATIC

Each asset has its own deposit vault, and the Function sendtoL2 is invoked with the necessary parameters, which include the amount of asset to be sent, the destination chain ID. When assets are sent across the bridge, a TransferSentToL2 event log is emitted.

From this event, we can find the user details, destination chain and amount of asset involved transferred. From the contract which emits this event log we can identify the asset in consideration. Aggregating these data, we can generate the metrics we require.

The contract addresses for the respective vaults are

• 0x22b1cbb8d98a01a3b71d034bb899775a76eb1cc2 - MATIC
• 0xb98454270065A31D71Bf635F6F7Ee6A518dFb849 - WBTC
• 0xb8901acB165ed027E32754E0FFe830802919727f - WETH
• 0x3d4Cc8A61c7528Fd86C55cfe061a78dCBA48EDd1 - DAI
• 0x3E4a3a4796d16c0Cd582C382691998f7c06420B6 - USDT
• 0x3666f603Cc164936C1b87e207F36BEBa4AC5f18a - USDC

Overall comparison

The table above shows the data comparing Native and Hop Bridge. In all metrics, Native bridges are the overwhelming winners, more than a factor of 10 in most cases. However Average is pretty similar, while Median of Hop is greater. However, the largest transfer is still using Native.

A couple of reasons for these could be :

• Native bridges are built and maintained by the entities or teams that are incharge of the L2 that they bridge to, hence slighty more trustable. Hop is a 3rd party and hence that plays a role
• Hop unlike Native bridges is a more liquidity protocol, keeping liquidity in both sides to allow fast transfers. Hence the bridging on Hop is constrained by params like Liquidity. Native bridges have no such issues, sky is pretty much the limit.

Comparison by Chain

Analysing the data, grouping by Chain, we can see Polygon stand out strongly favouring Native Bridges. While in Arbitrum and Optimism, we can see that Hop is responsible for around 10% of the activity (in terms of all parameters). However in Polygon, we can see the fraction is way way smaller.

This could be because Polygon is a more adopted and well known L2. This works two ways.

• Users tend to flock to Polygon more as its the more publicised L2. Developers who target a wider size of Users tend to build on Polygon. This reinforces both way, as Developers bring more utility and products to Polygon and, this attracts more users.
• Arbitrum and Optimism being late arrivals to the L2 space and being slightly more technical with the jargon, and usually shunned. This also means, these users tend to prefer native bridges as they are less likely to meddle with slightly more complicated stuff. Hence avoiding Hop altogether.

Looking at the average and median volume of assets bridged, each chain has its own character. Arbitrum has higher average and median volume via Hop, while Optimism has comparable average for both, bt median of Hop is higher. Polygon sticks out being contradictory, as Average is higher for native bridges, while median is higher for Hop

A greater Average-Median difference suggests that outliers are high, which in our case would suggest that Whale activity is higher, if the Average Median difference is higher. Using this logic, we maybe able to presume that Arbitrum has more whale activity on Hop, while the other two chains Optimism and Polygon tend to have more whale activity on Native Bridges.

Daily comparison

Daily data isn't to different. Hop being clearly the secondary bridge. Most activity has come on Optimism's governance token launch. Otherwise, the activity has been comparative in general.

The clear difference in Average and Median sizes is above. While Average has been volatile, with both Native and Hop alternating in general. However Median size of Hop is in general. Even in average size, most days see Hop have higher average sizes. This could imply that, there are certain transactions or days that completely the average in favour of Native bridges.

Conclusion

Hence, while most activity flows through Native Bridges, Bigger transaction definitely undergo a selection process. There is hints of dilemma amongst big bridgers, to choose which option to use. If the distribution was similar, we should have seen comparable Median sizes, just like how Averages were same.