deBridge operates two main products: (1) deBridge Messaging - node operators validate cross-chain transactions for data and asset transfers, and (2) DLN (deBridge Liquidity Network) - an order book of cross-chain intents where Makers create intents in the source chain and Takers provide liquidity on the destination chain. Validators currently do not take a cut of transfer fees (supply-side fees).

deBridge is an interoperability protocol with two products: deBridge Messaging enables decentralized transfers of data and assets between blockchains, and DLN (deBridge Liquidity Network) is a cross-chain token bridge and trading infrastructure. deBridge was founded by Alex Smirnov and launched in 2021, with DLN launched in 2023.

The deBridge team and investors own and govern the protocol. They currently take all transfer fees paid by traders (revenue). deBridge's investors include ParaFi Capital, Animoca Brands, Huobi Ventures, Lemniscap, etc. All fees paid by traders are accumulated on smart contracts operated by the deBridge team and will be governed by deBridge token holders.

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Interoperability

deBridge

# deBridge Expenses Methodology

## 1. Overview

The deBridge Messaging expenses metric measures operational expenses incurred by the deBridge Messaging protocol, specifically token incentives paid to users or liquidity providers. The metric is currently implemented as a placeholder that returns zero values across all time periods and chains, but maintains the complete infrastructure and dimensional structure for future implementation when deBridge Messaging introduces token incentive programs.

## 2. Data sources

The metric leverages several key data sources from the deBridge Messaging cross-chain bridge infrastructure:

- **Asset mapping events**: Parsed `PairAdded` events from DeBridgeGate contracts across eight blockchains (Ethereum, Arbitrum, Base, BSC, Avalanche, Fantom, Optimism, and Polygon) that establish relationships between bridge asset IDs and native token addresses
- **Bridge transaction events**: Parsed `Sent` events from DeBridgeGate contracts on the same eight chains, containing fee parameters and transaction details
- **Token metadata**: Token contract information including decimal places and symbols for proper amount calculation
- **End-of-day price feeds**: Daily USD price data for all tokens involved in fee calculations
- **Chain configuration data**: Wrapped native token contract addresses and chain ID mappings for each supported blockchain

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Asset identification and mapping
- **Purpose**: Establish relationships between deBridge Messaging asset IDs and their corresponding native token addresses across different blockchains
- **Logic**: Process `PairAdded` events from DeBridgeGate contracts to extract `debridgeId`, `nativeChainId`, and `nativeAddress` parameters. Map numeric chain IDs to chain names using predefined configuration. Remove duplicates and filter out invalid mappings where chain matching fails
- **Key fields**: `debridgeId` for unique asset identification, `nativeChainId` for destination chain, `nativeAddress` for the actual token contract address

### Component B: Transfer fee extraction
- **Purpose**: Extract fee information from cross-chain transfer events to establish the base data structure
- **Logic**: Process `Sent` events from DeBridgeGate contracts across all supported chains. Extract nested fee parameters including `fixFee` (flat fees denominated in native tokens) and `transferFee` (percentage-based fees in transferred tokens). Join with asset mappings to link bridge IDs to token addresses. Apply business categorization as interoperability services
- **Key fields**: `fixFee` for flat fee amounts, `transferFee` for percentage-based fees, `debridgeId` for asset linking, transaction metadata for tracking

### Component C: Fee processing and normalization
- **Purpose**: Process and standardize fee amounts for both flat and percentage-based fees
- **Logic**: Split processing into two parallel streams. For flat fees, use wrapped native token addresses as the denomination. For percentage fees, use the actual transferred token addresses. Apply decimal correction using token metadata to convert raw blockchain amounts to proper token units. Convert all amounts to USD using end-of-day price feeds. Aggregate data to daily time boundaries
- **Key fields**: Corrected `amount` values, `token_address` for price lookups, `timestamp` for daily aggregation

### Component D: Fee combination
- **Purpose**: Combine all fee types into a unified fees metric
- **Logic**: Union flat transfer fees and percentage transfer fees into a single dataset. Apply finalization macro to ensure proper schema compliance, validate dimensional IDs, and fill any gaps in the time series with zeros
- **Key fields**: Combined `fees` amounts, complete dimensional attributes including chain, product, and business categorization

### Component E: Token incentives placeholder
- **Purpose**: Create the token incentives metric structure that will become the expenses
- **Logic**: Take the complete dimensional structure from the fees metric including timestamp, chain, and product information. Set all `token_incentives` values to 0 across all records. Apply the same finalization process to ensure schema compliance and gap filling
- **Key fields**: `token_incentives` set to zero, preserved dimensional structure from fees

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: The final expenses metric simply renames the `token_incentives` field to `expenses` without any mathematical transformation
- **Currency conversion**: Already handled in the underlying fee processing using end-of-day USD price feeds
- **Time aggregation**: Data is aggregated to daily boundaries during the fee processing stages
- **Final calculation**: Expenses = token_incentives (currently 0), maintaining the same dimensional structure including timestamp, chain ID, and product ID for future enhancement when actual token incentive programs are implemented

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

Total project operating and incentive expenses.

deBridgeDBR

Expenses

Expenses

Competitive landscape

Chain breakdown