Blockchains Introduction

FLOW is a blockchain platform that originally was designed for gaming purposes, but has expanded since its launch in 2020. The flow blockchain enables fast, low-cost transactions and supports smart contracts. Flow is a proof of stake blockchain designed to be the foundation of Web3 and the open metaverse, supporting consumer-scale decentralized applications, NFTs, DeFi, DAOs, PFP projects, and more.

Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capitalization. Ethereum was conceived in 2013 by programmer Vitalik Buterin.

Solana is a decentralized blockchain built to enable scalable, user-friendly apps for the world. Solana is a designed to host decentralized, scalable applications. Solana can process many more transactions per second and charges lower transaction fees than rival blockchains like Ethereum.

Binance Smart Chain (BSC) was first introduced to the world by Binance in 2019. And from that point on, Binance has made sure to provide the fastest and most decentralized trading. Binance Smart Chain provides a full-featured decentralized development environment built on new Blockchain technology training.

NEAR Protocol is a public Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain that aims to bring DeFi to the masses with low transfer fees and fast transactions. NEAR competes with Avalanche, Solana, Cardano, Algorand, the new version of Ethereum, and other PoS networks.

Avalanche is a platform for creating custom blockchain networks and decentralized applications (dApps). Created by Ava Labs, the Avalanche crypto platform is one of many projects seeking to unseat Ethereum as the blockchain ecosystem's most widely utilized smart contract platform.

Cosmos is a decentralized network of independent blockchains, each powered by Byzantine Fault-Tolerant (BFT) consensus algorithms. The Cosmos vision is to build an “internet of blockchains” that can scale and interoperate with one anothe

User Retention

User Retention refers to the ability of a blockchain to retain its users over some specified period. High user retention means blockchain users tend to return to, continue to use or in some other way not defect to another blockchain or to non-use entirely.

Knowing blockchain retention rates can tell blockchains where are they falling short, which features keep users coming back, how loyal users are, and if blockchains are on track with meeting users needs and expectations.

Methodology

In this dashboard, I am going to compare FLOW blockchain’s user retention vs other L1 blockchains.

This dashboard has 2 parts:

1- Comparing Users Retention based on their activity and transactions in whole blockchain.

2- Comparing Users Retention based on their NFT purchasing activity in blockchain.

For the first part (Transactions), I am going to compare FLOW vs other L1 blockchains such as Ethereum, Solana, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche, NEAR & Cosmos.

for the second part (NFT), I am going to compare FLOW vs Ethereum and Solana (3 of the most popular NFT ecosystem in cryptocurrency market)

Since the data for the first part is so heavy (especially because of the Solana blockchain!) I have limited this analysis’s timespan from Start of the Year 2022 (2022-01-01) till today (2022-12-16).

Moreover, Since gathering data from all blockchains in one single query (one single chart) make it so heavy and resulted in query timeout (900s), I have analysed some data in seperate charts for each blockchain.

My methodology for this analysis is to rank the users’ transactions by their block_timestamp (using row_number() command) and then join 2 of these tables together when the row_number of second table is equal to row_number of first table + 1. So, We just have to calculate the time difference (by using timediff command) between the block_timestamp of these 2 transactions by user to calculate the average time difference between a user transactions in a chain.

Part 1: Users’ Retention Based on Whole Blockchain’s Transactions

On the above charts, you can see the number of users on blockchains based on the average time between their transactions. As we see, the average time difference between the transactions of majority of FLOW users is between 2 weeks - 1 month and the next ranks belong to the users with 1 - 3 Months and Less Than 1 Hour time difference between their transactions. in Ethereum, highest share belong to users with 1 - 3 month time difference between their transactions and the next rank belong to the users with more than 3 months between their transactions. So, the users retention on FLOW seems is better than Ethereum and this means FLOW users tend to do repetous transactions on this chain more than Ethereum users. in Solana, there is a huge high difference between number of users with less than 1 hour between their transactions and other type of users. this high number of users with less than 1 hour time difference between their transactions can be mainly because of the bots activity on this chain. Anyway, We can say that users (+bots!) retention on Solana is way more than FLOW and Ethereum. in Binance Smart Chain, we can see the most number of users have 2 - 7 days time difference between their transactions and the next ranks belong to users with less than 1 hour and 1 - 2 days time difference between their transactions. So, We can say that the User retention on Binance Smart Chain is also better than FLOW and Ethereum. in Avalanche, similar to the BSC, highest share of users have an average 2 - 7 days time difference between their transactions and the next ranks belong to users with less than 1 hour and 1 - 2 week time between their transactions. So, Avalanche users retention is also better than Flow and Ethereum but still less than BSC and Solana. in NEAR protocol, the majority of users have an average less than 1 hour time difference between their transactions and the next ranks belong to the users with 2 - 7 days and 1 week - 2 week time difference between their activity on chain. So, NEAR is also performing better than FLOW in terms of users retention. And at last in Cosmos, we can see high time difference between the users transactions and we can say this chain is on the second rank of worse user retention after Ethereum.

Average Time Difference Between Users’ Transactions

Monthly Active Users

Based on the above charts, Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum have by far the highest number of monthly active users. Next ranks belong to the Solana and FLOW blockchains and totally we can see the growth rate of FLOW is kinda better than other chains and we can see this chain is almost the only chain that its number of active users have increased over time especially during November 2022.

On the left chart, we can see the average monthly number of active users on chain. As we see, Binance Smart Chain is on the first rank in this terms with the highest average monthly number of active users and the next ranks belong to the Ethereum, Solana and FLOW.

So, in terms of monthly active users, FLOW is performing better than NEAR, COSMOS and Avalanche.

Users Who Have Performed Transactions Within a Single Month

in Below, I have calculated the number of users on each chain that have performed at least 2 transactiosn within a single month.

According to the above data, The total number of users who have performed transactions within a single month on Solana is way way more than all other chains (240M unique users!) On the next ranks, we have Binance Smart Chain with 37.5M Unique users, Ethereum with 15.76M unique users and FLOW on the 4th rank with 6.49M unique users. So, in terms of number of active addresses that have transacted at least twice within a single month, FLOW is performing better than Cosmos, Avalanache and NEAR and is on the 4th rank after Solana, Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum.

In the above charts, I have extracted the average number of transactions per user within a month on different blockchains.

As we see, in this terms, Solana users have by far the highest average number of transactions within a Month. The interesting thing is that second rank belong to the NEAR users and FLOW is on the 3rd rank, higher than Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Avalanche and Cosmos blockchains !

Also, on the right chart I have distributed users by their number of transactions within a single month. As we see, the majority of users in almost all blockchains (except Near, Cosmos & Avalanche) including FLOW have done only transaction within a month. The share of one-time users on FLOW is way more than other chains.

Also, we can see the share of users with more than 100 transactions within a month on Solana is way more than all other chains. these users can be the main reason behind that high average users activity within a month on Solana.

Part 2: NFT Purchasers Retention on Flow vs Ethereum vs Solana

On the above charts, Firstly we can see the total number of NFT purchasers on Ethereum (as the leading NFT projects' ecosystem) is more than both Solana and Flow. Moreover, we can see the majority of users on all of these 3 chains have an average 2 - 7 days time difference between their NFT purchasing activity. The next (2nd) rank on FLOW and Solana belong to the users with less than 1 hour time difference between their NFT purchasing activity while the second rank on Ethereum belong to the users with 1 - 2 weeks time difference between their purchases. this means that Flow and Solana have better NFT purchasers' retention that Ethereum (maybe the main reason is the high value of Ethereum NFTs compared to the other 2 chains and there are few ppl who can afford purchasing multiple NFTs within a month!) The 3rd rank on Flow belong to the users with 2 weeks - 1 month time difference between their NFT purchasing activity while on Solana the 3rd rank belong to the users with 1 - 12 hours time difference between their NFT purchasing behavior. So, we can say Solana is performing a little better than FLOW in terms of NFT purchasers retention.

High share of users with more than 3 month time difference between their NFT purchasing activity on Ethereum (compared to the other chains) is another proof of bad performance of Ethereum in terms of purchasers retention.

Monthly Active Purchasers

On the above charts, we can see the number of monthly active Ethereum NFT purchasers in almost all months is more than Solana and Flow and this is because Ethereum has by far the largest NFT trading platforms and marketplaces and most valuable NFTs.

Totally, the trend line of monthly active NFT purchasers on all chains is decreasing more and more over time and the main reason can be the bad situation (bearish) of the whole cryptocurrency market and several crashes during the year 2022.

On the left chart, we can see the average monthly number of active NFT purchasers on Ethereum is more than Solana and FLOW.

On the above chart, I have calculated the number of users who have performed at least 2 NFT purchase transactions within a single month in Ethereum, Solana and FLOW.

As we see, similar to the previous results, The number of Ethereum users is more than both Solana and FLOW combined ! FLOW is on the 3rd rank of this ranking meaning that the number of FLOW nft purchasers who have performed more than 1 NFT purchases within a single month is less than both Ethereum and Solana.

Average Number of Transactions Per Users Within a Month

on the above left chart, I have calculated the average number of NFT purchasers per buyer within a single month on FLOW, Ethereum and Solana.

As we see, FLOW has the most active monthly purchasers since the average number of NFT purchases within a single month by an average FLOW buyer is way more than Solana and Ethereum.

Solana is on the 2nd rank of this ranking and Ethereum is on the 3rd rank.

And on the right above chart, I have distributed NFT purchasers on these chains based on their number of NFT purchases within a single month. As we see, the majority of NFT purchasers on all 3 chains have only performed 1 purchase transaction within a month and the next rank on all chains belong to the users with 2 - 5 purchase transactions.

But, we can see the share of buyers with high number of purchase transactions (more than 50) on FLOW is more than Solana and Ethereum and thats why the average number of NFT purchases per user on this chain is more than other chains meaning that FLOW has the most active NFT purchasers compared to the Ethereum and Solana.

Summary and Conclusion

Based on the above analysis:

• Ethereum has the worst situation of Users retention among all other chains and Solana (mainly because of the Bots) has the best situation.
• The average time difference between users’ transactions on FLOW is better than Ethereum but worse than other analyzed chains.
• The average number of monthly active users on Flow is on the 4th rank after Ethereum, Solana and Binance Smart Chain, higher than Avalanche, Near & Cosmos networks. Also, FLOW is almost the only blockchain that the trend line of its monthly active users over time is positively increasing !
• The total number of users who have performed transactions within a single month on Solana is way way more than all other chains and On the next ranks, we have Binance Smart Chain,, Ethereum and FLOW.
• So, in terms of number of active addresses that have transacted at least twice within a single month, FLOW is performing better than Cosmos, Avalanache and NEAR and is on the 4th rank after Solana, Binance Smart Chain and Ethereum.
• In terms of average number of transactions per user within a month, Solana is performing way better than other chains (mainly because of the bots activity maybe) and FLOW is on the 3rd rank after NEAR. However, the majority of FLOW users have done only 1 single transactions within a month.
• FLOW users retention in NFT purchasing activity (purchasers’ retention) is kinda better than its overall users retention on chain.
• The average time difference between NFT purchases by a FLOW NFT purchaser is less than Ethereum and slightly more than Solana which means FLOW is performing better than Ethereum in terms of NFT purchasers’ retention.
• The total number of users who have performed at least 2 single transactions within a month on Ethereum (as the larged NFT blockchain) is more than FLOW and Solana.
• The average monthly activity of FLOW NFT purchasers is way more than Ethereum and Solana and this means that despite low number of active purchasers within a month, these purchasers are way more active than Ethereum and Solana NFT purchasers. (one of the main reasons behind this can be because of low NFT prices on this chain and on the other hand, higher price of NFTs on other chains especially Ethereum. So, there are few purchasers who can afford perform multiple NFT purchasing activity within a single month on Ethereum).

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