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.

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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)

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What is Satellite Bridge?

Satellite is a web application built on top of the Axelar Network. It provides an easy to use interface which enables users to transfer their crypto assets from one chain to another.

Satellite was the first app to demonstrate that Axelar connects all Cosmos chains via IBC and its GCP protocol with multiple ecosystems.

(Read More)

What Does Bridging Assets Mean?

A crypto bridge (also known as a cross-chain bridge) is a tool that gives you the power to transfer digital assets and information from one blockchain to another.

Blockchain bridges can do a lot of cool stuff like converting smart contracts and sending data, but the most common utility is token transfer.

(Source)

Dashboard Introduction & Methodology

In this dashboard, I am going to analyze the users’ activity over Axelar’s Squid Router & their behavior within blockchains. Moreover, I am going to compare the activity of Squid & Satellite bridges and their users’ behavior since the launch of Squid. Squid Router was officially launched on 31st January 2023 but the extracted data from its contract_address shows some previous activity from Nov. 15, 2022. So, I am going to analyze the data related to Squid & Satellite bridges from Nov. 15, 2022, till today (Analysis Date = Feb. 18, 2023). The main difference between Satellite & Squid is that on Satellite, users can transfer an asset from 1 chain to another chain, but on Squid, users can transfer an asset from 1 chain to ANOTHER ASSET on another chain.

The following metrics are analyzed:

1. Comparison of Squid & Satellite Bridges on Axelar.
2. User Segmentation Analysis of Squid Router.

Methodology:

Squid Router: The main tables that we are going to use for this router 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.

to identify the bridger users, we can simply extract their wallet addresses from origin_from_address column

Satellite Bridge: For satellite, The main tables that we are going to use for this router are also Flipside's Arbitrum, Avalanche, BinanceSmartChain, Ethereum & Polgyon .core.fact_event_logs tables but we have to filter the origin_to_address column to Axelar Gateway Address on each chain but we have to exclude results that are related to Squid Router (contract_address != '0xce16f69375520ab01377ce7b88f5ba8c48f8d666'). Below, you can see the contract address of Axelar’s gateway on each chain:

• Ethereum: 0x4f4495243837681061c4743b74b3eedf548d56a5
• Arbitrum: 0xe432150cce91c13a887f7d836923d5597add8e31
• Avalanche: 0x5029c0eff6c34351a0cec334542cdb22c7928f78
• Binance Smart Chain: 0x304acf330bbe08d1e512eefaa92f6a57871fd895
• Polygon: 0x6f015f16de9fc8791b234ef68d486d2bf203fba8

Despite the Squid, we can’t identify the wallet address of Satellite bridgers using origin_from_address column because this column returns us the Axelar Gateway Address. So, we have to extract the wallet address of the bridger using the 3rd array of Topics column of .core.fact_event_logs table and concat the ‘0x’ string to the right 40 characters of the extracted result from the related query. (concat ('0x',right(topics[2],40))

The main goal of this dashboard is to analyze user growth for Squid vs. Satellite since Squid’s launch on Flipside-supported chains (Ethereum, Avalanche, Binance, Polygon) and to realize whether Satellite’s users remained loyal, or are they transitioning to Squid for their cross-chain transfers, Or are the users different, and also to provide a users segmentation analysis of Squid router users.

==(For an in-depth analysis of Squid Router’s performance and bridge transfer & transferred tokens’ volume during its first days of launch, check out my previous dashboard on Flipside.)==

Part 1: Squid & Satellite Comparison Since The Launch of Squid on 15th November 2022

According to the above data, since the launch of the Squid router on Axelar, the number of bridges via Satellite is still more than the Squid router but the interesting thing is that there are almost 10x more users who have used Squid router than users who have used Satellite! Anyway, the volume of bridged tokens via Satellite is still way more than bridges via the Squid router (almost 8x more) but the average volume of bridges via the Squid Router is more than the average Satellite bridge volume.

Polygon is the most popular chain for Satellite users followed by Ethereum on the second rank but on Squid, Ethereum has the highest bridge volume followed by Polygon on the second rank.

On the above charts, we can see the increasing bridging activity via both of these protocols on Axelar over time which is good news for the Axelar ecosystem. The main activity of Squid Router has begun from 31st January 2023. From this date, this Router has kinda absorbed the active bridgers of Satellite bridge over time but the number and especially volume of bridges via Satellite is still way more than Bridges via Squid router. Moreover, in almost all days (except January 12, 2023) we can see the number of new first-time users on Squid router is way more than Satellite first-time users. This can be because Satellite is older than Squid and Squid just started its official activity since 31st January 2023. 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.

On the left charts, we can see the crossover of these 2 major Axelar bridges’ users.

As we see on the right chart, since the launch of the Squid router, almost 90% of users have only used Squid and there are only 10% of users who have only Satellite bridge! There are also a few users (5 wallets) who have used both of these protocols.

So, we can say that Satellite’s users did not remain loyal to this protocol and have transitioned to Squid for their cross-chain transfers.

Part 2: User Segmentation Analysis of Squid Bridgers

According to the left chart, the majority of bridgers via Squid router have only done 1 bridge transaction via this router (almost 76% of them). on the second rank, we have 20% of users who have done 2-5 bridges via Squid and there are only 1% of users who have done more than 10 bridges.

Also, on the right chart, we can see the most number of Squid users have totally bridged $10 - $100 via this router followed by users who have bridged $100 - $1000 assets.

According to the left chart, USDC is by far the most popular bridged asset on both protocols and WETH is the second most popular bridged asset.

According to the left chart, Avalanche <=> Polygon are the most popular pathways of Squid users via this router. Polygon is the most popular destination and also source chain for Squid Router transfers followed by Avalanche. On the next ranks, we have Ethereum & Binance Smart Chain.

On the above-left chart, we can see the most popular destinations that Squid Users have interacted with them on each chain. As we see, USDC is almost the most popular asset that these users have interacted with it on all chains. Totally, we can see the dominance of Decentralized Exchanges (such as Uniswap, TraderJoe, 0x, QuickSwap & etc) in the majority of chains as the most popular destinations of Squid Users.

On the right chart, we can see the top emitted events by Squid Users on each chain and as we see, ‘Transfer’ is the most emitted event by these users in all chains, followed by Approval & Swap actions.

According to the left charts, the wallet age of Squid Router users on Ethereum is more than other chains and Arbitrum’s users (as the newest blockchain among supported chains) have the lowest age.

Also, we can see the distribution of Squid Users by their wallet age on each chain on the right chart. Arbitrum has the highest share of users with less than 1 week age and on the other hand, Ethereum has the highest share of users with more than 2 years age.

On the above, we can see an analysis of Squid Users’ wallet balance. The average $USD value of Squid Users’ wallet is $1790 but the median $USD balance is $9.13.

Also, the majority of these users (32.7% of them) are currently holding less than $10 in their wallet followed by 31.2% of users who are holding $10 - $100.

Moreover, ETH is the most popular token held by Squid users. Almost 1010 of these Squid Users are currently holding ETH in their wallet. Also, there are some of them who have Wrapped Ether (WETH) and staked Ether (such as stETH & aSTETH) in their wallet.

Summary & Conclusion

Since the launch of the Squid router on Axelar, the majority of Satellite users have transitioned to the Squid Router but Satellite has still way more number and especially the volume of bridged tokens than the Squid router.

The main advantage of Squid Router is that users can bridge one asset from one chain to another asset to another chain but on Satellite, users were only able to transfer the same asset from one chain to another chain. So, this can be the main reason behind the migration of Satellite users to Squid. Since the transactions’ duration and also required gas fees for both bridges are almost the same.

Since the launch of the Squid router, almost 90% of users have only used Squid and there are only 10% of users who have only Satellite bridge! There are also a few users (5 wallets) who have used both of these protocols.

So, we can say that Satellite’s users did not remain loyal to this protocol and have transitioned to Squid for their cross-chain transfers.

The main activity of the Squid router has begun since 31st January 2023 and from this day, we have seen increasing activity of bridges & also number of new first-time bridgers via this router.

Ethereum, Polygon & Avalanche are the most popular chains of these bridge protocols on Axelar. USDC is by far the most popular bridged asset by both protocols.

The majority of Squid Router bridgers have totally done 1 bridge transaction via this router and most number of them have bridged $10 - $100 worth of assets via this protocol.

Binance Smart Chain & Avalanche have the most active Squid Users but the age of wallets on Ethereum is more than other chains.

USDC contract address is the most popular interacted contract by Squid users in the majority of chains. Decentralized Exchanges such as Uniswap, TraderJoe, QuickSwap & 0x were also among the most popular destinations of Squid users.

ETH (and its derivates such as Wrapped & Staked Ether) is the most popular held token by the majority of Squid Users.

**Discord: Ali3N#8546 Twitter: Alik_110 Email: Alik110.72@Gmail.com Check out My Other Dashboards at: **

==(For an in-depth analysis of Squid Router’s performance and bridge transfer & transferred tokens’ volume during its first days of launch, check out my previous dashboard on Flipside.)==

The main difference between Satellite & Squid is that on Satellite, users can transfer an asset from one chain to another chain, but on Squid, users can transfer an asset from one chain to ANOTHER ASSET on another chain. So, this advantage of Squid can be the main reason that users have migrated from Satellite to Squid router.

Based on the left chart, Binance Smart Chain Squid Users have the most active bridgers but the average daily transactions of Squid users on Avalanche chain is more than other chains.

Also, Binance Smart Chain’s users have the highest number of active days on chain.

On the below left over-time chart, we can see the activity of Squid Users on each chain over time.

As we see, These bridgers activity is increasing as time goes on and during recent days, we can see the highest number of active Squid Users on these 5 chains.