Introduction

What is the Axelar?

Axelar is the universal overlay network, securely connecting all blockchain ecosystems, applications, assets and users to deliver Web3 interoperability. 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.

Source:

Question

Welcome to Axelar! What better to way to get used to Axelar data than to analyze how people enter the ecosystem? With that in mind, analyze the activity that occurs on Axelar's Satellite Bridge. Since inception, what are the top paths over Satellite. by volume and $ amount? What is the most used token to transfer (USDC, wETH, wAXL, etc.)?

Overview

This analysis contains three main parts to investigate the activity of bridge in Axelear network:

• Inflow and outflow by bridge
• Chain analysis and draw a path of asset transferring
• The most used tokens for bridge into or from Axelar

The time base analysis done on the weekly basis over this dashboard.

Methodology

The data provided by Flipside has been used to handle this analysis.

In this analysis, the following topics have been covered:

• The used table→ axelar.core.fact_transfers

• Inflow and outflow analysis→ where transfer_type in ('IBC_TRANSFER_IN','IBC_TRANSFER_OUT')

• Identification of chains→ ==By the use of the first words of sender and receiver address==

  regexp_substr (sender,'[a-zA-Z]+|\d+') as source_chain

• Drawing a bridge path→ CONCAT(source_chain,' -> ',Destination_chain)

• Token selection→ use currency and osmosis.core.dim_prices to find the USD value of transferred asset

• Which token mostly used to bridge in and out of Axelar?

Part 1 - Analysis of Bridge In and Out

Findings

This part determines the inflow and outflow from Axelar network by Satellite bridge:

• The inflow transfers are more than outflow as can be seen.
• From the last week April 2022, the transfers from Axelar to other networks increased.
• The domination of inflow into the Axelar network is dramatically high from the USD value of transfers.
• The average transfer volume in USD for inflow transfers is about 4 times larger than outflow from Axelar.
• On May 9-16, the highest volume of transfer into the Axelar happened and we all know the Terra crush had huge impact on it.
• From the users point of view, the highest participation on bridge transfers occurred on February 21 to 28, 2022.

Part 2 - Analysis by Chains

Findings

In the second part of this investigation, the detailed analysis related to the source and destination chains has been done. Also, the Transfer path has been drawn according to the path of transfers by Satellite bridge.

• The most popular source chain that send assets into the Axelar is Terra and the Osmosis stands in the second rank.
• Over 340 million USD has been send into the Axelar network from Terra blockchain by about 56k unique senders.
• From the destination part aspect, the most used chains that users transfer assets from Axelar into them are Osmosis, Evmos and Cre.
• The highest count of users by destination bridge belong to Osmosis network.
• The highest average transfer volume by source and destination bridges belong to INJ as can be seen.

Now lets see the popular transfer paths through Satellite bridge:

• The most popular transfer path is Terra→Axelar path and the Osmosis→Axelar path takes the second rank.
• Osmosis→Axelar path has over 147 million USD transfer volume as can be seen.
• INJ→Axelar with about 470k USD as average transfer volume has been dominated the transfer paths in average sent asset in USD.
• The most of the transfers through Terra→Axelar happened before middle of May 2022 and after that date, the transfers through this path have been decreased significantly.
• The cumulative analysis of transferred volume in USD for various paths indicates the break point. For example, Terra→Axelar path has breakpoint on May 2-9, 2022.

Part 3: Analysis by Tokens

Findings

The final part of analysis talk about the most used token transferred through Satellite bridge on Axelar.

• From the count of transfers, the AXL token has the highest application. USD, USDC and LUNA have the next ranks, accordingly.
• From the USD value of transfer for tokens through Satellite bridge, it can be seen that the USD and USDC has the highest transfer volume. Luna with over 118.4 million USD value has the third highest transfer volume by bridges on Axelar.
• The average transfer volume in USD has been dominated by INJ token with near 2 million USD.
• Now lets see each token used for what? Transfer into the Axelar or from Axelar to other chain?
• The AXL token mostly has been used for transfer from Axelar to other chains.
• The XKI token has equal usage for transfer in and out from Axelar.
• Other tokens mostly used for transferring into the Axelar from other chains.
• Before May 9, 2022 the domination among tokens held by USD and Luna tokens but after that date, the USDC takes the first rank.
• Also, the AXL token has been emerged since last week of September, 2022 in the transferred assets by bridge.

Conclusion

• Most of the transfers on Satellite bridge are for transferring into the Axelar network from other chains.

• Mostly, users sent their assets from Terra to Axelar and on the other side, from Axelar to Osmosis.

• USD, USDC and Luna have more application on Satellite bridge over other tokens.

• Among popular tokens, the USDC has growing trend for transferring through Satellite bridge over time. Also, the application of AXL token has been increased since its launch.