Introduction

Our purpose of this report is to visualize the trend among the users of ethereum dex swaps. If one were to mention about DEX on the ethereum chain, then they would definitely talk about uniswap and sushiswap, which are amongst the most popular DEX. (DEX means Decentralized exchange).

Given below is a graph that depicts the share of transaction on each DEX. We can clearly see that uniswap-v2, uniswap-v3 and sushiswap together dominate the DEX market. So we will be analysing these 3 DEXs.

Note : For this analysis, we will be considering only the Ethereum blockchain and not polygon chain. This because of the popularity of Sushiswap and Uniswap on etheruem

In order to compare DEXs, we would first need to establish some metrics to measure their performance on. The DEXs we will compare are Uniswap (both uniswap v2 and uniswap v3) and Sushiswap. To name the metrics, we are going to compare the DEXs on

1. Active number of users per day

2. Number of swaps on the DEX per day

3. Gas used per swap each day

We will be studying the trend in a 3 month timeline. That is how the DEXs have performed over the last 3 months.

Active users

For this analysis, we consider active users as addresses on the block chain that are not contract address or token addresses. In other words, we only consider addresses that have initiated the swap. What we mean by that is, there are some transactions that need to pass through multiple contracts (or pools) for the swap to be complete. So, we will not be considering those contract addresses as users. We shall now look at how the number of active users has changed every day in each DEX. Again, we will be looking at the trend over the last 3 months. One could say that more the number of active users on a DEX more healthy it is as a lot of people trust it.

From the graph, it evident that Uniswap-V2 is the go-to place for swaps. However, during the recent times, it appears that Uniswap-V3 is gaining ground, while sushiswap is a different story. The number of active users swapping on Sushiswap appears to be declining from the peak of 8k users in January 2022 to reduced 4k users in April 2022.

Below is a cool representation of the trend.

Transactions on DEX

For this analysis, we shall only consider the transactions that have been initiated by a user rather than a transaction executed by a pool or a contract. What we mean by that is, there are some swaps that need to pass through a number of pools (or contracts) for the swap to be completed. One such example would be the transaction - 0x43cc7d67ed2016f881fadee1748664a82972c2522c09fb7a73b125b84fb13998. To get around this, we use the ethereum.transactions table which automatically takes care of such redundancy. One could say that more the number of swaps taking place on a DEX, more popular it is.

Now that we had looked at the active users on each DEX, one could anticipate that a similar trend will be observed for the number of transactions as well. And rightly so, we can see that Uniswap-V2 is the DEX with highest number of transactions. Uniswap-V3 displays an increasing trend over the past few weeks, however, the increase is not substantial, and needs to be probed further. Coming to Sushiswap, it again exhibits a declining trend. The number of transaction reduces from around 30 thousand a day to 20 thousand a day. While the drop is not dramatic, it is evident.

Below is just a cool representation of the trend over time.

Gas used per transaction

Another metric that I personally think is important is the amount of gas used for each transaction. The amount of gas depends varies on each DEX. So, we compare the amount of gas paid by the user to swap on each DEX.

Ignoring the unusual spikes, one can observe that the swaps on Sushiswap require relatively lower gas amounts. While the gas used by Uniswap-V2 and Uniswap-V3 is on par with each other (except for the unusual spikes), Sushiswap performs better.

Summary

Uniswap-V2 and Uniswap-V2 clearly dominate the market as we speak, on both the metrics, number of users, and number of transactions. However, the lower gas requirements by Sushiswap can be a good reason for an user to explore Sushiswap for future swaps.