{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,2]],"date-time":"2026-07-02T15:57:20Z","timestamp":1783007840705,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":55,"publisher":"Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)","issue":"2","funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["No. 72573146"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["No. 72573146"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]},{"name":"Guangzhou-HKUST(GZ) Joint Funding Program","award":["No. 2025A03J3882"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["No. 2025A03J3882"]}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100010256","name":"Guangzhou Municipal Science and Technology Project","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["No. 2025A04J4168"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["No. 2025A04J4168"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100010256","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["dl.acm.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Proc. ACM Meas. Anal. Comput. Syst."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,29]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Modern blockchain ecosystems consist of many heterogeneous networks, creating an essential need for interoperability that allows assets to move seamlessly across chains. Cross-chain bridges serve as the primary infrastructure enabling this interoperability by executing verifiable state transitions that reallocate assets and liquidity across networks. Although prior work has focused largely on bridge design and security, the system-level and economic consequences of liquidity interoperability remain poorly understood.<\/jats:p>\n                  <jats:p>This paper presents a large-scale empirical measurement study of cross-chain interoperability based on a comprehensive dataset covering 20 blockchains and 16 major bridge protocols from 2022 to 2025. We model the multi-chain ecosystem as a time-varying weighted hypergraph and introduce metrics to characterize blockchain interoperability via bridges. We define two metrics of interoperability. Structural interoperability captures the connectivity implied by deployed bridge infrastructure, reflecting bridge coverage and redundancy independent of user behavior. Active interoperability captures how intensively users rely on cross-chain routing in practice, measured as realized cross-chain transfer volumes normalized by chain size. This decomposition enables analysis of infrastructure capacity and utilization as distinct dimensions. Our analysis reveals several key findings. First, the cross-chain network evolves from a sparse hub-and-spoke topology into a dense, multi-hub core dominated by EVM-compatible chains. Second, we show that cross-chain capital flows are return-chasing and cost-sensitive, whereas structural interoperability primarily serves as an enabling factor rather than a directional driver of flows. Third, we identify a growth-return paradox: while higher interoperability expands ecosystem scale, it dilutes native asset value. Fourth, we uncover an efficiency-fragility trade-off: structural interoperability acts as a load balancer that reduces average gas fees, but it also synchronizes economic cycles. Bridges transform independent networks into a tightly coupled system. Finally, we show that architectural heterogeneity across bridge designs leads to distinct economic and system-level outcomes, yielding direct implications for the design of scalable and resilient cross-chain infrastructure.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1145\/3805650","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,29]],"date-time":"2026-05-29T20:34:18Z","timestamp":1780086858000},"page":"1-29","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["The Price of Interoperability: Exploring Cross-Chain Bridges and Their Economic Consequences"],"prefix":"10.1145","volume":"10","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0007-1478-3842","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yiyue","family":"Cao","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0006-8717-7766","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Mingzhe","family":"Zheng","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2617-2367","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Lin William","family":"Cong","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1371-7257","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Siguang","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6918-2699","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Xuechao","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,29]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_1_1_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/SP54263.2024.00255"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_2_1","volume-title":"XChainDataGen: A Cross-Chain Dataset Generation Framework. arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.13637","author":"Augusto Andr\u00e9","year":"2025","unstructured":"Andr\u00e9 Augusto, Andr\u00e9 Vasconcelos, Miguel Correia, and Luyao Zhang. 2025. XChainDataGen: A Cross-Chain Dataset Generation Framework. arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.13637 (2025)."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_3_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Anton I Badev and Cy Watsky. 2023. Interconnected DeFi: Ripple effects from the terra collapse. (2023).","DOI":"10.17016\/feds.2023.044"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_4_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3471140"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_5_1","volume-title":"SoK: A review of cross-chain bridge hacks","author":"Belenkov Nikita","year":"2023","unstructured":"Nikita Belenkov, Valerian Callens, Alexandr Murashkin, Kacper Bak, Martin Derka, Jan Gorzny, and Sung-Shine Lee. 2025. SoK: A review of cross-chain bridge hacks in 2023. arXiv preprint arXiv:2501.03423 (2025)."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_6_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3696410.3714867"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_7_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3040","DOI":"10.1093\/rfs\/hhaf046","article-title":"Liquidity provision on blockchain-based decentralized exchanges","volume":"38","author":"Capponi Agostino","year":"2025","unstructured":"Agostino Capponi and Ruizhe Jia. 2025. Liquidity provision on blockchain-based decentralized exchanges. The Review of Financial Studies, Vol. 38, 10 (2025), 3040-3085.","journal-title":"The Review of Financial Studies"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_8_1","volume-title":"Price discovery on decentralized exchanges. The Review of Financial Studies","author":"Capponi Agostino","year":"2026","unstructured":"Agostino Capponi, Ruizhe Jia, and Shihao Yu. 2026. Price discovery on decentralized exchanges. The Review of Financial Studies (2026), hhag002."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_9_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"7306","DOI":"10.1287\/mnsc.2023.00281","article-title":"Scaling smart contracts via layer-2 technologies: Some empirical evidence","volume":"69","author":"Cong Lin William","year":"2023","unstructured":"Lin William Cong, Xiang Hui, Catherine Tucker, and Luofeng Zhou. 2023. Scaling smart contracts via layer-2 technologies: Some empirical evidence. Management Science, Vol. 69, 12 (2023), 7306-7316.","journal-title":"Management Science"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_10_1","unstructured":"Lin William Cong Eswar S Prasad and Daniel Rabetti. 2025. Financial and informational integration through oracle networks. Technical Report. National Bureau of Economic Research."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_11_1","unstructured":"Cosmos SDK. 2026. x\/circuit: Circuit Breaker Module Documentation. https:\/\/docs.cosmos.network\/sdk\/v0.50\/build\/modules\/circuit\/README. Accessed 2026-01-13."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_12_1","unstructured":"deBridge. 2026 a. deBridge DLN API: Daily Statistics Endpoint. https:\/\/dln-api.debridge.finance\/api\/Satistics\/getDaily. Accessed 2026-01-13."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_13_1","unstructured":"deBridge. 2026 b. deBridge DLN API: Orders Filtered List Endpoint. https:\/\/stats-api.dln.trade\/api\/Orders\/filteredList. Accessed 2026-01-13."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_14_1","unstructured":"DefiLlama. 2026 a. DefiLlama API: Historical Chain TVL. https:\/\/api.llama.fi\/v2\/historicalChainTvl\/. Accessed 2026-01-13."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_15_1","unstructured":"DefiLlama. 2026 b. DefiLlama API: Protocol TVL. https:\/\/api.llama.fi\/protocol. Accessed 2026-01-13."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_16_1","unstructured":"DefiLlama. 2026 c. DefiLlama Bridges Dashboard. https:\/\/defillama.com\/bridges. Accessed 2026-01-13."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_17_1","volume-title":"SFPoW: Constructing Secure and Flexible Proof-of-Work Sidechains for Cross-Chain Interoperability with Wrapped Assets","author":"Deng Zhihong","year":"2025","unstructured":"Zhihong Deng, Chunming Tang, Taotao Li, Zhikang Zeng, Parhat Abla, and Debiao He. 2025. SFPoW: Constructing Secure and Flexible Proof-of-Work Sidechains for Cross-Chain Interoperability with Wrapped Assets. IEEE Trans. Comput. (2025)."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_18_1","unstructured":"Dune Analytics. 2026. Dune Analytics. https:\/\/dune.com\/home. Accessed 2026-01-13."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_19_1","unstructured":"Ethereum Foundation. 2024a. Optimistic rollups. https:\/\/ethereum.org\/developers\/docs\/scaling\/optimistic-rollups\/. Accessed 2026-01-13."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_20_1","unstructured":"Ethereum Foundation. 2024b. Zero-knowledge rollups. https:\/\/ethereum.org\/developers\/docs\/scaling\/zk-rollups\/. Accessed 2026-01-13."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_21_1","unstructured":"Ethereum Improvement Proposals. 2022. EIP-4844: Shard Blob Transactions. https:\/\/eips.ethereum.org\/EIPS\/eip-4844. Accessed 2026-01-10."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_22_1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 2024 on ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security. 2591-2605","author":"Torres Christof Ferreira","year":"2024","unstructured":"Christof Ferreira Torres, Albin Mamuti, Ben Weintraub, Cristina Nita-Rotaru, and Shweta Shinde. 2024. Rolling in the shadows: Analyzing the extraction of mev across layer-2 rollups. In Proceedings of the 2024 on ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security. 2591-2605."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_23_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"11","DOI":"10.1007\/s12525-023-00637-4","article-title":"A multivocal literature review of decentralized finance: Current knowledge and future research avenues","volume":"33","author":"Gramlich Vincent","year":"2023","unstructured":"Vincent Gramlich, Tobias Guggenberger, Marc Principato, Benjamin Schellinger, and Nils Urbach. 2023. A multivocal literature review of decentralized finance: Current knowledge and future research avenues. Electronic Markets, Vol. 33, 1 (2023), 11.","journal-title":"Electronic Markets"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_24_1","volume-title":"A survey on cross-chain technologies. Distributed ledger technologies: research and practice","author":"Han Panpan","year":"2023","unstructured":"Panpan Han, Zheng Yan, Wenxiu Ding, Shufan Fei, and Zhiguo Wan. 2023. A survey on cross-chain technologies. Distributed ledger technologies: research and practice, Vol. 2, 2 (2023), 1-30."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_25_1","volume-title":"An economic model of a decentralized exchange with concentrated liquidity. Management Science","author":"Hasbrouck Joel","year":"2025","unstructured":"Joel Hasbrouck, Thomas J Rivera, and Fahad Saleh. 2025. An economic model of a decentralized exchange with concentrated liquidity. Management Science (2025)."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_26_1","volume-title":"The need for fees at a dex: How increases in fees can increase dex trading volume. Management Science","author":"Hasbrouck Joel","year":"2026","unstructured":"Joel Hasbrouck, Thomas J Rivera, and Fahad Saleh. 2026. The need for fees at a dex: How increases in fees can increase dex trading volume. Management Science (2026)."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_27_1","volume-title":"Atomic Cross-Chain Swaps. arXiv preprint arXiv:1801.09515","author":"Herlihy Maurice","year":"2018","unstructured":"Maurice Herlihy. 2018. Atomic Cross-Chain Swaps. arXiv preprint arXiv:1801.09515 (2018)."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_28_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3700424"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_29_1","first-page":"1776","volume-title":"Companion Proceedings of the ACM Web Conference","author":"Huang Chuanshan","year":"2024","unstructured":"Chuanshan Huang, Tao Yan, and Claudio J Tessone. 2024. Seamlessly Transferring Assets through Layer-0 Bridges: An Empirical Analysis of Stargate Bridge's Architecture and Dynamics. In Companion Proceedings of the ACM Web Conference 2024. 1776-1784."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_30_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TIFS.2023.3281064"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_31_1","unstructured":"V. Jose. 2020. yfinance: Yahoo Finance market data downloader. https:\/\/github.com\/ranaroussi\/yfinance. Accessed 2026-01-03."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_32_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3532857"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_33_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/jofi.13405"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_34_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1049\/blc2.12032"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_35_1","volume-title":"Towards Blockchain Interoperability: A Comprehensive Survey on Cross-Chain Solutions","author":"Li Wenqing","year":"2025","unstructured":"Wenqing Li, Zhenguang Liu, Jianhai Chen, Zhe Liu, and Qinming He. 2025. Towards Blockchain Interoperability: A Comprehensive Survey on Cross-Chain Solutions. Blockchain: Research and Applications (2025), 100286."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_36_1","unstructured":"MetaMask. 2026. MetaMask Launches Bridge Aggregator in dApp. https:\/\/metamask.io\/news\/metamask-launches-bridge-aggregator-in-dapp-to-easily-move-tokens-across-chains. Accessed 2026-01-13."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_37_1","first-page":"22","volume-title":"5th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT","author":"Moosavi Mahsa","year":"2023","unstructured":"Mahsa Moosavi, Mehdi Salehi, Daniel Goldman, and Jeremy Clark. 2023. Fast and furious withdrawals from optimistic rollups. In 5th Conference on Advances in Financial Technologies (AFT 2023). Schloss Dagstuhl-Leibniz-Zentrum f\u00fcr Informatik, 22-1."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_38_1","volume-title":"Cross-Chain Bridge Stargate's","author":"News Binance","unstructured":"Binance News. 2023a. Cross-Chain Bridge Stargate's Volume Soars As Airdrop Hunters Set Sights on LayerZero Token. Accessed 2026-01-06."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_39_1","unstructured":"Defillama News. 2023b. Airdrop hunters send crypto bridge Stargate to new highs. Accessed 2026-01-06."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_40_1","volume-title":"Sok: Cross-chain bridging architectural design flaws and mitigations. Blockchain: Research and Applications","author":"Notland Jakob Svennevik","year":"2025","unstructured":"Jakob Svennevik Notland, Jingyue Li, Mariusz Nowostawski, and Peter Halland Haro. 2025. Sok: Cross-chain bridging architectural design flaws and mitigations. Blockchain: Research and Applications (2025), 100315."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_41_1","unstructured":"Osmosis Labs. 2026. IBC Rate Limit Module. https:\/\/github.com\/osmosis-labs\/osmosis\/blob\/main\/x\/ibc-rate-limit\/README.md. Accessed 2026-01-13."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_42_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3771566"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_43_1","volume-title":"Wormhole Cross-Chain Bridge Transactions Flow: An Exploratory Study. In 2025 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC). IEEE, 1-2.","author":"Pillai Babu","year":"2025","unstructured":"Babu Pillai, Jeyakumar Samantha Tharani, and Vallipuram Muthukkumarasamy. 2025. Wormhole Cross-Chain Bridge Transactions Flow: An Exploratory Study. In 2025 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC). IEEE, 1-2."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_44_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.comnet.2021.108488"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_45_1","volume-title":"Proceedings of the 2023 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security. 1571-1584","author":"Sheng Peiyao","year":"2023","unstructured":"Peiyao Sheng, Xuechao Wang, Sreeram Kannan, Kartik Nayak, and Pramod Viswanath. 2023. Trustboost: Boosting trust among interoperable blockchains. In Proceedings of the 2023 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security. 1571-1584."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_46_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/Blockchain62396.2024.00015"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_47_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TIFS.2021.3096124"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_48_1","unstructured":"Wormhole. 2026. WormholeScan Upgrade: Real-Time Data Analytics for the Wormhole Ecosystem. https:\/\/wormhole.com\/blog\/wormholescan-upgrade-real-time-data-analytics-for-the-wormhole-ecosystem. Accessed 2026-01-13."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_49_1","unstructured":"Wormhole Foundation. 2026. WormholeScan API: Operations Endpoint. https:\/\/api.wormholescan.io\/api\/v1\/operations. Accessed 2026-01-13."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_50_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3696410.3714604"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_51_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3708821.3733878"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_52_1","first-page":"3925","article-title":"Sidechains with fast cross-chain transfers","volume":"19","author":"Yin Lingyuan","year":"2021","unstructured":"Lingyuan Yin, Jing Xu, and Qiang Tang. 2021. Sidechains with fast cross-chain transfers. IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing, Vol. 19, 6 (2021), 3925-3940.","journal-title":"IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_53_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-662-64331-0_1"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_54_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3551349.3559520"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_55_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3678890.3678894"}],"container-title":["Proceedings of the ACM on Measurement and Analysis of Computing Systems"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.1145\/3805650","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,29]],"date-time":"2026-05-29T20:36:41Z","timestamp":1780087001000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.1145\/3805650"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,29]]},"references-count":55,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,29]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1145\/3805650"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/3805650","relation":{},"ISSN":["2476-1249"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2476-1249","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,29]]},"assertion":[{"value":"2026-05-29","order":3,"name":"published","label":"Published","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}}]}}