What is Axelar Network?

Axelar network is a blockchain that connects blockchains, enabling universal Web3 interoperability. The network is secured using proof-of-stake consensus, and messages are routed and translated using permissionless protocols. As an analogy, Axelar is like Stripe for Web3. Axelar delivers secure cross-chain communication for Web3. Our infrastructure enables dApp users to interact with any asset or application, on any chain, with one click.

Axelar is composed of a decentralized network of validators, secure gateway contracts, uniform translation, routing architecture, and a suite of software development kits (SDKs) and application programming interfaces (APIs) to enable composability between blockchains. This allows developers to build on the best platform for their use case while being able to access users, assets, and applications in every other ecosystem. Instead of pairwise cross-chain bridges, they can rely on a network architecture that provides a uniform code base and governance structure. Axelar’s ultimate goal is to build the underlying infrastructure for onboarding the next billion people onto Web3. In order to achieve this goal, Axelar will:

1. Make it easy for blockchain developers to plug in and communicate with other chains.
2. Provide decentralized application (dApp) developers with cross-chain composability.
3. Allow users to interact seamlessly with applications across multiple ecosystems.

Read More

Dashboard Introduction & Methodology

In this dashboard, I am going to analyze the activity over Axelar’s Squid Router during its first days of launch on this network. The following metrics are analyzed:

1. The number of Squid Router Transactions, Unique Users & Transferred Tokens (Total & Breakdown By Token)

2. $USD Transfer Amount. (Total & Breakdown By Token)

3. Popular Source/Destination Chains

4. Popular Pathways

Methodology:

Thanks to the bounty hint, we have the related contract addresses for the Squid router on this link.

The main tables that we are going to use for this bounty are Flipside's Arbitrum, Avalanche, BinanceSmartChain, Ethereum & Polgyon .core.fact_event_logs tables with filtering the origin_to_address to the Squid Router (0xce16f69375520ab01377ce7b88f5ba8c48f8d666 in all chains). So, every Squid transaction and also its users are now extractable from tx_hash & origin_from_address columns.

For calculating the $USD volume of transfers, firstly we have to identify the transferred assets via Squid router. For this, We have to filter event_name column to ‘Transfer’ and origin_to_address to Squid Router contract. The event_inputs column gives us the value of transfers but since there are multiple events for a single transaction, we have to only extract 1 value for each transaction which can be extracted by filtering the event_inputs:to to the Squid Router address '0xce16f69375520ab01377ce7b88f5ba8c48f8d666' or origin_from_address to event_inputs:from. So, the contract_address column of the result table will be the actual contract address of the Transferred asset via Squid router. I have manually searched the contract address of tokens in each blockchain’s explorer (Arbiscan.io (Arbitrum), Snowtrace.io (Avalanche), BSCScan.com (Binance Smart Chain), Etherscan.io (Ethereum), Polygonscan.com (Polygon)) in order to identify the symbol of the transferred asset via Squid Router. Then, I joined the result table with ethereum.core.fact_hourly_token_prices table in order to extract the USD value and also the Decimals of each token (those which were available).

To identify the transfer paths, we have to extract data from input_data column for each transaction and convert the HEX value of this column to String. Based on the Squid app, There are currently limited available sources & destinations for transfers via this router (more will be coming soon) which are: Ethereum, Avalanche, Arbitrum, Polygon, Binance Smart Chain, Fantom, Celo & MoonBeam. Also, There are different origin_function_signatures for transfers via Squid Router. Call Bridge Call (0x8ca3bf68) & Bridge Call (0x3c659741) are used when the user wants to transfer an asset from one chain to another asset in another chain. Execute With Token (0x1a98b2e0) is used when the user wants to transfer an asset from one chain to the same asset in another chain. So, the extraction process of the destination & source chains from each origin_function_signature is different.

In all of the above steps, I have only considered ‘Successful’ transactions in order to analyze the data.

What is Squid Router?

Squid is the cross-chain swap and liquidity routing protocol on Axelar Network. Squid utilizes existing DEXs to swap and send any native token between chains. This can be done via our SDK, Front End, or Contracts directly.

Swaps are composable with Axelar's generalized message passing, so Squid can enable one-click transactions between any application and any user, using any asset. Buy NFTs from any marketplace, use multi-chain DeFi, play a game on another chain, all without signing multiple transactions or downloading multiple wallets. (Read More)

Try Squid Now!

Squid Twitter

On the above data, you can see the total number of Squid Router transactions, unique users, transferred (swapped) tokens & and also the total $USD volume of transferred assets.

On the second-row charts, we can see Polygon is the most popular chain for Squid users because most numbers of transfers with the majority of users were done on this chain followed by Avalanche on the second rank. However, the number of swapped tokens in Avalanche is more than other chains followed by Polygon on the second rank. Also, the transfer volume on Ethereum is more than other chains followed by Avalanche on the second rank.

Also on the left pie-chart, you can see the distribution of transfer transactions via Squid Router. As we see, the transactions with less than $10 volume have by far the highest share followed by transactions with $10 - $100 volume. But the average $volume of transfers is $255.

The above chart shows us that axlUSDC & USDC assets are by far the most popular transferred assets via Squid Router in terms of the number of transactions and also users. WAVAX, WETH & MATIC are the next popular transferred assets via this router.

On the left chart, we can see the share of each token on chains and as we see, USDC is by far the most popular transferred asset in all chains. (axlUSDC in chains otehr than Ethereum and USDC (native) in Ethereum)

On the above chart, you can see the total, average, median & maximum transferred volume for each asset via Squid Router. As we see, similar to the previous chart, axlUSDC & USDC are also the most popular transferred tokens in terms of $USD volume. WETH and USDT are in the next ranks.

The interesting thing is that the average, median & also maximum volume of WETH transfers is more than other assets.

The average volume of USDC transfers is $587.64 while the average volume of axlUSDC transfers is $138.51. So, This is another proof that USDC transfers on Ethereum are more wealthy than transfers in other chains (as axlUSDC).

According to the above chart, Avalanche <=> Polygon are the most popular pathways via Squid Router. Polygon is the most popular destination and also source chain for Squid Router transfers followed by Avalanche.

Summary & Conclusion

• There are almost 5400 transactions done via Squid Router by 859 unique wallets that have transferred 74 unique tokens via this bridge with a total volume of 3.14M $USD.
• Polygon is the most popular chain for Squid users but the number of transferred tokens in Avalanche is more than other chains and the total volume of transferred volume in the Ethereum chain is more than other chains.
• The majority of transfers done via Squid Router have less than $10 volume.
• The average, median & maximum volume of WETH transfers is more than all other assets.
• axlUSDC (All Chains Except Ethereum) & USDC (Ethereum) assets are by far the most popular bridged assets via Squid Router. (followed by WETH, WAVAX, MATIC & USDT)
• Polygon & Avalanche are the most popular source & destination chains and also transfer paths via Squid Router.
• The activity and especially, transferred volume via Squid router has increased significantly after its official launch on 31st January 2023 while the highest volume of transfers achieved on 9th February.

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On the above charts, the dominance of axlUSDC and also USDC transfers over other assets is clearly visible on almost all days.

The number of transactions via Squid Router was at its highest amount during Feb. 1 & 6 but the highest volume of transfers via this bridge has achieved on Feb. 9

Moreover, on the right chart, we can see the daily average transferred volume of assets in Squid which WETH has dominance on the majority of days.

Totally, after the official launch of Squid on 31st January, we can see quite an increasing activity in transferring assets via this protocol over time, especially in terms of volume.