The Best Guide to Picking the Right Interop Protocols for Your Chain
Gelato Team
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Jun 18, 2025
The Interop Landscape in 2025
Today's blockchain bridges offer massive UX upgrades and better security than their predecessors, but there's still no single perfect solution for all use cases. Continued improvements being made to these leading interop protocols brings each of them continually closer to achieving this endgame. This post will help clarify the trade-offs between different approaches so you can make the right choice for the assets on your chain.
Broadly speaking, bridges fall into two fundamental models: Issuer-based systems that mint and burn tokens across chains, and Liquidity Provider-based systems that use capital pools or solver networks to facilitate cross-chain token transfers. Each model makes different assumptions about trust, speed, and scalability.
The Core Models
Issuer Model
The issuer model is an iteration on earlier lock-and-mint bridges that eliminates the need for locked collateral pools. Instead, tokens are burned on the source chain and minted on the destination chain. It's worth noting that both LayerZero and Hyperlane offer collateral-backed routes alongside their burn-and-mint solutions. These collateral routes can be useful for some use cases, though they tend to face scalability challenges when expanding beyond a single connection or route, as fungibility across fragmented liquidity routes becomes difficult and capital-intensive to manage. Usually, this leads to requiring the services of a professional market maker. For this reason, the burn-and-mint issuer model has emerged as the more sustainable approach for inexpensive multi-chain token distribution.
LayerZero
LayerZero OFTs (Omnichain Fungible Tokens) represent the most broadly-used standard following the issuer approach – with 342+ unique assets issued using it, equating to ~$65B in value secured. By establishing a unified token standard across chains, OFTs enable easy transfers without cross-chain liquidity fragmentation. Unlike traditional bridges that require separate liquidity pools for each chain pair, OFTs eliminate pools entirely through their burn-and-mint mechanism. When you transfer an OFT, it's burned on the source chain and minted on the destination – this means there is no slippage on unlimited size, making the OFT Standard one of the most efficient ways to move capital ever invented. The trust model is application owned, enabling each token issuer to configure their own unique set of Decentralized Verifier Network (DVNs), which provides configurable security by having multiple independent verifiers attest to each transaction.
Hyperlane
Hyperlane Warp Routes (HWRs) take a more flexible approach to the issuer model. These HWRs and their corresponding Hyperlane Warp Assets (HWAs) function similarly to OFTs, but Hyperlane differentiates itself through a modular, do-it-yourself approach, with optional white-glove service from the core team. Hyperlane specialises in permissionless deployment with customizable security parameters. Supporting multiple token types — native, collateral-backed, and synthetic — HWRs can be configured for either burn-and-mint or lock-and-mint operations. Each route can have customizable Interchain Security Modules (ISMs), so that developers can tailor security parameters to their specific needs.
Circle
Circle's CCTP (Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol) belongs to a special category where a centralized issuer, Circle, manages both the single-chain asset issuance and the cross-chain burn-and-mint process for a single asset: USDC. It is burned on the source chain and minted on the destination via Circle’s CCTP attestation-based cross-chain transfer protocol. The recent addition of a fast mode makes it more competitive with liquidity solutions like Across and Stargate, whose main value proposition is to provide faster transfers via their own liquidity network.
Liquidity-Based
The liquidity-based approach splits into two distinct models: liquidity pools and intent-based solver networks. While pooled approaches aggregate capital into protocol-managed pools that serve all users, solver networks rely on individual market makers to provide liquidity on demand. This difference impacts capital efficiency, speed, and risk distribution.
Across
Across Protocol pioneered the intent-based approach, which creates a competitive marketplace where professional solvers race to fulfill user requests. When a user wants to bridge, solvers immediately front canonical assets on the destination chain, taking on delayed finality risk in exchange for fees. The fee-incentivized competition among professional market makers to fill user orders enables Across’ near-instantaneous 2-second delivery times, which has led to over $20B in volume.
The underlying crosschain attestation risk for resolving faults or frauds remains shared between all parties, as both user and solver must trust UMA's optimistic oracle for correct dispute resolution. Settlement happens through the optimistic oracle in hourly batches, with disputes resolved through decentralized token voting, if needed.
Across also works with issuer model tokens, and offers speed advantages over standard transfers. While native implementations include confirmation windows (set by the issuer) to protect against reorg risk, Across can bypass these safety delays. Solvers release funds to users immediately after seeing the burn transaction in a block — without waiting for confirmations — effectively absorbing the finality risk.
Stargate
Stargate pioneered a highly capital-efficient approach with its credit messaging system built atop LayerZero. Unlike traditional bridges that require separate liquidity pools for each asset and chain pair, Stargate manages liquidity with a single pool per asset per chain. This unified pool can serve all connected chains through its credit messaging system. By tracking and adjusting credit balances between chains, the system optimizes liquidity distribution without expensive on-chain transactions required for traditional rebalancing.
This two-layer architecture separates token pools from credit accounting and prevents race conditions that plagued earlier designs. The system can handle massive single transactions — over $100M — making it useful for institutional flows.
Stargate Hydra represents a hybrid approach that combines the benefits of both issuer and liquidity pool models. Through its Liquidity-as-a-Service ecosystem, Hydra extends support for USDC, USDT, and WETH to chains from day one. When users bridge to a Hydra chain, their assets are locked in Stargate's pools on the source chain while equivalent Hydra-wrapped tokens are minted on the destination. Importantly, Hydra implements Circle's Bridged USDC Standard, creating a forward-compatible path for bridged USDC to upgrade to Circle’s CCTP-issued native USDC. Every asset bridged through Hydra increases Stargate's Protocol Locked Liquidity for hybrid routes, creating a capital accumulation effect.
Hyperlane Warp Routes 2.0
Hyperlane Warp Routes 2.0 are Hyperlane’s answer to onchain liquidity bridging. Unlike single-token collateral models, this upgrade enables HWRs to accept various collateral types to facilitate minting or releasing assets on the destination chain. For example, 50 USDC on Base and 50 USDC on Arbitrum can be used to mint 100 USDC on a new chain. This design allows new chains to rapidly onboard liquidity from multiple source chains. Combined with permissionless Hyperlane deployments, HWR 2.0 offers new/long tail chains a compelling path to accelerating liquidity growth. HWR 2.0 also uses Circle’s Bridged USDC standard, allowing future compatibility with Circle CCTP native USDC.
Read more about Hyperlane Warp Routes 2.0
Interop Stack Decision Tree
Walkthrough
Let's walk through how to choose your interoperability solution based on your specific needs. While this decision tree helps identify your primary solution based on asset type, you'll also need to weigh additional factors like network effects, speed requirements, capital constraints, and flexibility needs covered in the next section.
Bridging ETH or Major Stablecoins
If you're launching a new L2 and need to bridge ETH and USDC:
Across for 2-second transfers via solver competition.
Stargate for its battle-tested unified pools.
Hyperlane Warp Routes 2.0 for permissionless liquidity onboarding.
If trustlessness isn't your primary concern, Stargate Hydra becomes the clear winner — you'll benefit from network effects with other Hydra chains and can always add Across solvers later for sub-2-second speeds. For new or long tail chains, HWR 2.0 offers a compelling permissionless option.
Launching Your Own Token
If your token already has liquidity across multiple chains, both Across and Stargate become viable, or you can use adapter contracts by either Hyperlane or LayerZero.
If you're starting fresh with no existing liquidity, you'd likely want to go with an issuer model. To avoid high upfront costs, choose Hyperlane. For the established standard with wide adoption, go with LayerZero OFT.
Supporting Third-Party Long-Tail Assets
If you need to support a niche gaming token on your chain and you're an Ethereum L2, Across and Stargate likely won't support illiquid assets. You'll need to provide liquidity yourself and take on token volatility risk. If you're not an Ethereum L2, work with the token issuer to deploy either a LayerZero OFT or Hyperlane Warp Route.
USDC Integration
Check if Circle has approved native USDC for your chain — if yes, use CCTP for direct Circle support. If not, Stargate Hydra and Hyperlane Warp Routes 2.0 with the Bridged USDC Standard provide a pre-native compliant solution that seamlessly upgrades to native USDC when Circle eventually provides support.
Other Important Considerations
In reality, your interoperability choice won't be driven by a single factor. Most chains need to balance multiple priorities: speed for user experience, capital efficiency for sustainability, network effects for growth, and flexibility for future adaptation.
Network Effects & Liquidity
Winner: Stargate Hydra
When you launch with Hydra, you immediately tap into liquidity shared with chains like Berachain, Story Protocol, and others in the Hydra ecosystem. Each new user bridging assets strengthens the network's liquidity flywheel.
Flexibility & Cost Control
Winner: Hyperlane
If you're a startup chain interested in a roll-your-own solution that circumvents the high onboarding costs of alternative interop protocols, Hyperlane is the clear winner. Permissionless deployment and modular ISMs let you start simple and upgrade as you grow.
Speed Priority
Winner: Across
Across achieves 2-second transfers because solvers compete on speed, with the most aggressive ones watching the mempool and releasing funds before transactions even confirm. Stargate and LayerZero are more predictable but inherently slower. The trade-off: Across needs active solvers on your routes, while Stargate/LayerZero work immediately but can't match solver speeds.
Start Building Your Interoperable Chain Today
The interoperability landscape offers solutions for every use case, but choosing the right stack requires understanding your specific needs and constraints. Whether you prioritize speed, scale, flexibility, or compliance, there's a solution that fits.
Ready to launch your own chain with world-class interoperability built in? Gelato RaaS makes it simple to deploy with support for all major bridging solutions.