Try Quests to earn cryptoBridger Destinations
Definitions:
- Bridging - The connection of two blockchains enabling actions between them.
- Destinations - In a transaction, the destination is the ‘To’ address which can be a contract or another wallet.
Methodology:
- Find bridges (from Ethereum to Polygon).
- Polygon docs identify PoS and Plasma Bridges
- Searching Etherscan we also find Hop and Zapper.Fi bridges
- Addresses and deposit methods are identified in the base query
- Bridged addresses maintain the original Ethereum address and are used for this analysis (some exceptions may exist).
- First transactions are identified utilizing a window function partitioned by address (over all bridges) and ordering over date.
- Merging polygon transactions to these addresses, we compare the first bridge date with the first transaction date to identify two groups of users: prior (transactions exist prior to the bridge) and new.
- Several exchanges and wallets allow direct withdrawals to Polygon meaning that an Ethereum based bridge is not required to deposit assets on Polygon.
- PoS bridge receives transactions at a contract address, but processes the transactions at different addresses (Ether/ERC20Bridge)
- Hop protocol has several bridges based on Token address
- Zapper.fi receives transactions at a contract address, but processes them through the PoS Ether/ERC20 bridge contracts.
- Destination addresses are the 1st (or 2nd) transaction recipient (To Address) from identified wallets.
Question: What are the 10 most popular first destinations for Polygon addresses that have just bridged from Ethereum?
> Comparing our first bridge date by wallet (from Ethereum) with the first wallet transaction date found on Polygon, we identify two groups: those who have a prior transaction to the bridge date and those who do not. These will be referred to as ‘prior’ and ‘new’ wallets. WIth respect to prior wallets, we will observe first transactions irrespective of their bridge date, as it best represents the ‘new wallet’ activity we seek to observe.
Response:
- While Plasma started with control of market share, it gave way to PoS as bridging activities increased.
- PoS currently controls volume and is the first choice destination for bridging to Polygon.
- Zapper appears to have ceased in Feb ‘22 and Hop has minor but consistent market share.
- Peak bridge transaction activity occurred in June ‘21 when Eth gas prices were averaging around 25 gwei.
- Tx growth exceeds new wallets in number indicting users bridge multiple times.
- Over 920k wallets have used these protocols to bridge assets to Polygon
Response:
As first transactions contained a number of transfer and approval calls (often required), the second transaction is also included in the analysis. This gives a better understanding of what wallets are interacting with.
- Of our ‘new’ wallets we find significant swap activity primarily on quickswap, but also sushiswap and metamask.
- Although not found, it should be noted that WETH approvals are required for OpenSea transactions, which may possibly be further down the Tx chain.
- AAVE and maker also make an appearance, indicating an interest in DeFi on Polygon.
- While our ‘first’ and ‘prior’ user categories do not provide additional insight, as the activities are similar, it is notable that KlimaDAO ranks in the top 10 of 2nd transactions among this group. KlimaDao enables users to fight climate change and made a strong contribution to attracting new activity on Polygon.
Final Statement:
Is the future of blockchain interoperability and bridging? While bridges have been victim to some of the most notable hacks including the Ronin Bridge and Wormhole, the anti-fragile nature of blockchain continues to push solutions forward.
Users certainly benefit from the increased speed and lower transaction costs available on Polygon while maintaining the security provided by Ethereum. This is made evident in the transactions above as users utilize several protocols to process transactions which are also available on Ethereum.