When I was more active in the airdrop farming scene, I used bridging protocols frequently to send my assets across different chains. I then quickly realized that the actual airdrop received wasn't more than the fees we had paid making the bridge farming a +/- thing.
In general, the protocol fees have been a pain in the neck for someone like me who is very active on multiple chains and often sends smaller amounts from one chain to another if a sniping opportunity is spotted. I soon realized that routing through a centralized exchange was often less costly, even though more time-consuming option.
If I were to return to be an active bridge user, these two things would be the ones I would be looking for:
- Low protocol fees
- Support for multiple chains
Since I was recently introduced to the Across Protocol by @PVM , I decided to do a little comparison between Across and Orbiter & DeBridge, the two other bridges I was using before.
The Mode Network, which is a part of the OP Super Stack, is something I've taken interest in again since they have now introduced AI Agents, a trend that is currently booming. This has reflected in the $MODE price positively but I still think there's a lot of space on the upside.
Therefore I'm going to test these bridges by sending a small amount of ETH from OP mainnet to MODE.
deBridge
The first subject, deBridge, was a bit disappointing right from the start as I found out that the Mode network isn't supported on their platform.
Although I'm not sure if this is fair towards DeBridge in this comparison but I tried sending OP ETH to Base which is also part of the Optimism Superchain and a network with low fees.
No luck. My ETH balance is too low to even cover the gas fees.
While still interested in the bridging fees, I disconnected my wallet and entered 0.001 ETH as an amount to be sent and got this breakdown of the fees:
Ok, I'm not sure whether I read this correctly but it seems that I had enough ETH to cover the gas fees but in fact, not enough to cover the deBridge fees.
The total cost would've been $4.4994 or in ETH, 0.001126. I would have also received points that count toward a possible future airdrop of $DBR tokens. I participated in deBeridge season 1 and was eligible for about $40 worth of $DBR which was not more than I had spent on gas while farming the airdrop.
Conclusion:
- Not for small fish
- There's a chance of getting fees back as an airdrop. Not guaranteed though.
- The amount of chains supported is rather low
Orbiter
This is a bridge I've been using alongside with deBridge and mostly for bridging to Mode so I know it's at least supported on Orbiter. Also, when scrolling down the list I can see that Orbiter actually supports quite a few chains ranging from ETH L2s to BTC L2s. Points for that.
Now, as for the actual test, Orbiter allows me to send the same amount of ETH (0.000826) as I tried with deBridge but I would only receive 0.000321 ETH on Mode as a lion's share would go to withholding fees if was to go through with this transaction. Trading fees would be 0% but that's not really comforting in this case.
I would also earn +3 O-points for the future airdrop if there ever going to be one.
Conclusion:
- High platform fees
- Support for various chains
- Reward Program that might, or might not pay some of the fees spent
Across Protocol
The same thing between the two chains: bridging from Optimism with the same amount of ETH to Mode but this time using the bridge on the Across Protocol.
As you can see below, the fee breakdown here looks a lot different compared to the other two examples. Also, it looks like I'm getting a 95% rebate from the OP rewards program!
Even without the rebate, the destination gas fee would've been non-existent but this makes the bridging almost free.
Now let's try it out and see what Rabby Wallet says. Indeed, I'm about to receive the same amount of ETH on Mode that I'm sending from OP while paying only $0.0021 for gas. Not bad!
I then clicked to confirm the transaction which was filled in 4 seconds.
Finally, back to Rabby to check my balance and there it is.
Conclusion
Across Procol comes out as a clear winner here, no question about that. In fact, this was probably the smoothest and the best experience I've had with bridging assets. The best thing about it was the Across Protocol allowing even these kinds of small transactions to be made. Good news to all smaller fish!
Across also has a good list of supported chains such as Aleph Zero, Blast, Scroll, and World Chain. Hope to see more added in the future because I am definitely going to replace routing through exchanges with Across whenever that is possible.
Also, it's noteworthy to mention that depending on the cryptocurrency, and the exchange, the withdrawal fees there can be quite hefty and we might be forced to make some compromises. Therefore, if we take the low fees and ultra-fast speed of the Across Protocol into consideration, it becomes the number one option to move assets across chains.
Thank you for reading!
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DISCLAIMERS:
This is NOT financial advice.
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