Introduction

Most existing blockchains are isolated from each other, making it difficult for them to interact and communicate with one another. Cross chain technology was designed to fix this problem and it avoids reliance on a centralized entity, therefore avoiding third party risk such as abrupt withdrawal halts or even operational shutdowns, and gives users full custody of their crypto with the goal of facilitating a faster processing time at a lower transaction cost. This will make it easier for anyone with an internet connection to transact across different blockchain networks from anywhere in the world.

Terra Bridge enables cross-chain transfer of all tokens supported by Shuttle (Terra - Ehtereum Bridge) including Terra native tokens, most mAssets and also other token types from Terra ecosystem. In October 2021, Terra joined the Cosmos Network enabling connections to other blockchain using the IBC (Inter-Blockchain Communication) Protocol. Several networks are supporting the transfer of Terra native tokens through the Bridge.

The tweet below points out some newcomers to Terra Bridge; Secret, Injective and Axelar. Other networks available include Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain,Harmony and Osmosis.

Methodology

My first attempt was to query the terra.transfers table with where event_from_address_name IN ('osmosis bridge', 'secret bridge', 'axelar bridge', 'injective bridge') since 'ethereum bridge' and 'binance bridge' were already labeled there. It would have been too easy...

I used Terra Bridge to send some UST to the Osmosis Network and queried by own transaction to dig into the data structure of the bridge transactions.

I noticed that it had the event_type = 'ibc_transfer' label in terra.msg_events table, so I started to map the event_attributes:receiver to the network by the starting string of each address, since Osmosis addresses start with 'osmo...', Axelar with 'axelar...', Injection with 'inj...' and Secret with 'secret'. There were still a lot of transactions unmapped so further analysis led me to select the Juno addresses. The rest were categorized as other addresses, which include Kava, Gravity, Cro, Omniflix,Cosmos among others.

Once I had a table with tx_id mapped to networks, I joined it with the terra.transfer_events table to add the amount of UST and LUNA per day on two separate queries.

Note: this method includes LUNA and UST transfers to all (or many) IBC-compatible chains. The question specifies four network (Osmosis, Secret, Axelar, and Injective) but additional chains have been included to put the 4 selected in context.

And although I cannot tell why for sure, I assume not all transfers are coming through Terra Bridge, but that is not a requirement as I understand it.

Results

Transactions per day

First some context, most days since January 1st, 2022 have between 2000 and 5000 transactions between networks. Osmosis was the leading network without competion until January 27th when Axelar reached over 1500 in one day. SInce then, Osmosis and Axelar have been the dominanting networks.

Amount LUNA transferred

The picture of LUNA transferred to the analysed networks is pretty one sided, here Osmosis accounts for over 60% of LUNA transferred, reaching several days with over 97%. Only Axelar has some significant activity (between 6% and 18%9 between February 2nd and 22nd and there is an outliner for other networks on February 25th that will be analysed separately.

In terms of volume, Osmosis reaches a peak of 526k LUNA on January 17th with a USD value of over 40M.

Amount UST transferred

The picture for transferred UST is a bit more colorful, here Osmosis is still the dominant network but the rest have some significant activity, at least in single days.

Axelar shows again more activity since January 25th, reaching almost 50% of total activity on February 8th.

Juno with 15% on February 1st, Injection with 10% on February 1st and Secret with 9% on January 26th each show their influence on this otherwise orange colored graph.

In terms of volume, it is comparable to LUNA. Max volume occurs in Febraury 24th and March 2nd with over 35M.

LUNA whales on CRC

On February 25th, two transactions over 3M in USD value each were done from Terra addresses to recipients addresses starting with crc.... This was 33% of the transferred volume that day among all networks, with a total short of 100k LUNA. I couldn't find more info on such addresses.

Conclusions

Osmosis seems to be a serious contender as destination for UST interchain transfers. Only the most significant days on Ethereum are over the levels of Osmosis transfers.

Axelar had some days with a lot of activity, but has retraced down and I would roughly compare it to Injection and Secret. This increased Axelar activity could have been caused when the bridge opened and once the euforia passed, returned to a second-stage position.

But where I found the most interesting results was in LUNA transfers. It looks like Osmosis is the go to place for users transfering theis LUNA tokens out of Terra's network.

Comparison to Ethereum, Binance and Harmony

To get some context, I will compare the values of transferred LUNA and UST to the other Bridges. These have their own label as event_from_address_name which makes the query easier.

LUNA transfers (USD Value)

For LUNA's USD value, the picture is similar but Binance shows little activity (always below 1M). Ethereum's baseline is between 1M and 2M, with spikes over 8M til 15M and Harmony hovers between 0.5M and 1.5M.

Osmosis shows higher transfer levels that all three.

UST transfers

For UST, Ethereum shows quite some activity with a baseline of around 20M and several spikes of 100M to 250M. Binance and Harmony show much less activity, having one day over 10M but usually hovering between 2M and 5M.

Osmosis doesn't fall that much behind and I would compare the numbers to Ethereum's without the crazy spikes. Axelar also overtakes Binance and Harmony, specially on the first half of February.

Tweet link

For some reason, Axelar is not available right now.

Sources

Umee Docs

Cosmos Network