Overview of the Cross-Chain Bridges Market in 2025: Transaction Volume Hits New Highs, Competition Intensifies Among Top Players

Recently, with the resurgence of DeFi enthusiasm in the crypto market, on-chain activities have also increased. In this environment, cross-chain bridges, as connectors between different blockchain networks, have become increasingly important. Cross-chain bridges not only reflect on-chain activity but also demonstrate the actual demand for capital flow between chains. This article will comprehensively analyze the performance of leading cross-chain bridges since 2025.

Overall Market Trend: Significant Increase in Trading Volume, Stable Number of Trades

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, rapidly growing to $50 billion by November 2024, an increase of 188%. This level of activity is maintained as we enter 2025.

In July 2025, the on-chain highest cross-chain transaction volume reached $56.1 billion, setting a historical record. However, a deeper analysis reveals that this increase in transaction volume mainly comes from large transactions. In terms of the number of transactions, the monthly transaction count in May 2024 had reached 15.12 million, and by November 2024 it remained around 14.47 million, not significantly rising with the surge in transaction amount.

Data shows that in May 2024, the average on-chain transaction amount was approximately $1,051. By November 2024, this figure had grown to $3,489, an increase of 231%.

The main reason for this change may be that from 2024 to early 2025, certain public chains attracted user interest due to meme coins, airdrops, and other hot topics, leading to frequent small fund movements. Since April 2025, these hot topics have gradually cooled down, but the market has attracted more mature investors with substantial capital. This has shifted on-chain activities from high-frequency, small-scale interactions to larger-scale capital allocation and transfer.

Public Chain Liquidity Analysis

From the capital flow situation of various public chains this year, Ethereum remains the absolute leader in cross-chain transactions. Whether it's inflow, outflow, or net flow, Ethereum ranks at the top. Since the beginning of the year, Ethereum's net inflow has reached $10.1 billion, nearly 8 times that of the second-ranked public chain.

Sonic unexpectedly became the second-ranked public chain in terms of 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 biases caused by the migration of old chain assets to the new chain, and it does not fully reflect its actual level of activity.

In terms of net outflow, a certain trading platform ranks first with a net outflow of $5 billion. This may be related to the recent attractiveness of the Ethereum mainnet. In the past three months, the funds flowing to Ethereum from this platform reached $5.9 billion, even exceeding the total net outflow since the beginning of the year.

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

Competition for Traffic Among Leading Protocols and Applications

In terms of cross-chain messaging protocols, LayerZero remains the leading project. In the past month, the amount of cross-chain transactions completed through LayerZero reached $4.965 billion, accounting for nearly half of the total cross-chain transaction volume for the month. Circle's CCTP ranked second in transaction volume over the last month, reaching $3.8 billion, closely related to the rapid development of USDC. Additionally, the 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, primarily involving the flow of stablecoins 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 solely on cross-chain bridges. This has also propelled Hyperliquid to a leading position in cross-chain bridge applications.

The second-ranked cross-chain bridge is USDT0, but its inclusion may be primarily due to issues with the statistical criteria. The data panel also categorizes "issuer-level minting and burning migration" as part of the "cross-chain bridge traffic." In simple terms, this means that the exchange and issuance of the stablecoin USDT across various chains are counted as cross-chain transaction volume.

Differentiated Competition of the Three Core Protocols

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

Across

The trading volume of Across in the past month is approximately $1.4 billion, with about 20,000 transactions. Across is a cross-chain bridging 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 connected with a certain public chain ecosystem and launched a one-click cross-chain currency exchange feature for some DEXs. 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 the average level at the beginning of 2024. The average size of a single cross-chain transaction on Across is approximately $4,718, supporting 19 chains.

Across's current development strategy is to collaborate with leading DEXs, simplifying "cross-chain" to "a step for currency exchange," and increasing the speed of adding new chains through the V4 version.

StarGate

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

In 2025, StarGate focused on launching the V2 version, introducing optimization measures and the key Hydra mechanism. Hydra expands liquidity from mature "core" chains to emerging L1/L2 by locking native assets in the core pool and minting fully homogeneous tokens on the target chain. This innovation allows new chains to access liquidity from USDC/USDT/ETH and other tokens directly through Hydra without the need to pre-establish a funding pool. One of StarGate's biggest advantages is the large number of supported chains; according to official statements, it currently supports 80 chains.

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

deBridge

deBridge is a universal messaging protocol, the security of which is ensured by an independent, elected network of validators. The trading volume in the past month is approximately $814 million, with a cumulative settlement of over $13.4 billion in trading volume.

deBridge is one of the most profitable cross-chain bridges, with a revenue of $2.06 million in the second quarter of 2025. On July 24, the deBridge Foundation announced the launch of a reserve fund, using 100% of the protocol's revenue to buy back its native token DBR on the open market. This news led to a significant short-term increase in the price of DBR, but it subsequently fell back.

Summary

The cross-chain bridges market in 2025 presents a complex situation of "macroeconomic prosperity and microeconomic differentiation." The overall cross-chain transaction volume has reached a historic high, with Ethereum continuing to maintain its position as a capital hub. However, this prosperity is driven more by large transactions rather than a broad increase in the number of users, indicating that cross-chain activities are shifting from retail speculation to deeper capital flows.

In the competitive landscape, the competition among cross-chain protocols has surpassed mere trading volume comparisons. Although certain applications rank high on the leaderboard, core competition still focuses on mainstream protocols such as Across, StarGate, and deBridge. These protocols are engaging in comprehensive competition across multiple dimensions, including technical architecture, ecosystem integration, and economic models, laying the foundation for the future development of the cross-chain market.