Stargate Finance is LayerZero's flagship consumer bridge with unified liquidity across chains. Deep USDC, USDT, and ETH bridging across 20+ chains. Best for stablecoin bridging on routes where Across doesn't serve.
What Stargate is
Stargate provides bridging built on top of LayerZero's messaging infrastructure. Its unified liquidity model means a Stargate pool on one chain is directly connected to Stargate pools on other chains — no wrapped tokens, no fragmented liquidity.
Stargate V2 (2024) introduced Hydra pools — a next-gen liquidity design that improved capital efficiency and reduced slippage on bridging.
Fees
- Bridging fee: ~$1-5 for typical stablecoin routes (LayerZero messaging + LP fee)
- Slippage: variable per pool utilization
- Chain gas: user pays on source and destination
Verdict
Stargate is the standard consumer bridge for USDC/USDT/ETH transfers across 20+ chains. Not always the cheapest (Across wins on many EVM routes; CCTP wins on native USDC), but the most consistently-supported.