COMPASS Q2 2023: Finding the “You” in Users: How Human Behavior is Shaping the Crypto Ecosystem
Active addresses vs. active users, liquid staking tokens (LSTs), the ETH gas shortage, the “Flippening,” Bitcoin Ordinals, and BRC-20 woes.
With Q2 2023 now saved to our collective memory, the CEX.IO Market Research Team is back to share a new approach to its quarterly analysis. Despite still finding space to crunch the numbers and unpack on-chain anomalies, the Team widened its scope to include advanced insights into the people behind the transactions. Unlike past reports that centered primarily on the innovations and valuations sparking intrigue across the ecosystem, this edition emphasizes the real movers and shakers: YOU.
For this installment of COMPASS, the Team turned its attention toward the breadth and frequency of address activity across a variety of industry verticals. Careful not to conflate active addresses with active users, the report notes how individual humans can have innumerable footprints in the crypto space. However, by tracking the engagement of addresses across decentralized finance (DeFi), decentralized exchanges (DEXs), NFT usage, and access to network bridges, communities emerged in the correlated data.
The Team isolated six of the top 10 Layer 1 (L1) and Layer 2 (L2) blockchains, plus Bitcoin, by total value locked (TVL), to hone its focus. Much like COMPASS Q1 2023 , Arbitrum and Optimism were once again major players, alongside Polygon, Avalanche, Binance Smart Chain (BSC), and the Ethereum mainnet, to accompany Bitcoin’s flagship status. This sample size was then assessed by how addresses on each chain interacted with prominent amenities throughout the digital economy.
For those seeking technical analysis, this edition of COMPASS also examines how innovations on the Bitcoin and Ethereum networks are causing internal strife among some users. With the rise of liquid staking tokens (LSTs) driving an ETH shortage across the ecosystem, the Team explores how gas fees could be impacted on the Ethereum network. Plus, as Bitcoin continues to see strong responses for its forays into the NFT space, not all participants are thrilled by these developments. Where Ordinals are offering a clever alternative to dwindling miner fees, BRC-20 tokens are gumming up the network with erroneous actions that have some users feeling overwhelmed.
We hope you’ll join us for our latest evaluation of the crypto ecosystem, as we uncover the human elements at play in the digital economy. Grab your COMPASS at the link below, and expand your crypto journey with a trusted guide.
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