Intro:

In an effort to better understand user behavior across multiple blockchains, the Brydge team analyzed 2 of the largest Web3 applications (OpenSea and SushiSwap) and 4 different chains (Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism). We used Dune Analytics to gather data on over 1 million contract calls, focusing on user token holdings across different chains, token bridging patterns (the transfer of digital assets from one blockchain to another), and token swapping behavior prior to interacting with the applications. 

These are all relevant topics for us at Brydge as our mission is to make paying on any chain with any token as simple as possible for the average user. We handle everything from the bridging process to purchasing any NFT with any token. You can find more information on our docs. 

All the data collected for this study is from Dune.com. All charts are built on Dune or based on data taken from Dune. If you’d like to learn more, check out our Dune Dashboard with the queries we used.

OpenSea:

We started our analysis with OpenSea, the largest NFT marketplace by volume, and focused on their Polygon Seaport contract (0x00000000006c3852cbef3e08e8df289169ede581). 

The first statistic we looked into was user token ownership across the different chains. We focused on the average ERC-20 holdings on the Optimism, Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Polygon networks for the 1000 most recent users and 1000 most active users on the Seaport contract. The data for the recent and top demographics are shown below respectively:

What we found was that users in both demographics had more tokens on average on Arbitrum, Ethereum, and Optimism than on Polygon. This means a large share of liquidity for users interacting with the Seaport Polygon contract is inaccessible in its current state. If a user wants to buy an NFT on Polygon but wants to use tokens from Optimism, he or she would need to bridge to do so.

We then turned our focus to token swapping behavior prior to interacting with the Seaport contract. The results were negligible: <1% of NFT purchases had users swapping tokens within 2 hours of the purchase. Investigating further, the majority of NFT’s on OpenSea are listed in native currencies (ETH, MATIC, etc.) with a small portion listed in ERC-20’s (USDC is most common among these). This makes sense in terms of ease of use as gas costs are paid in native currencies. Regarding the low swap rate, it’s more likely that users would have bought the native currency originally than having bought an ERC-20 to swap for the native currency.

To better understand cross-chain interaction, we analyzed user bridging data prior to interacting with the Seaport contract across three time frames: 1 day, 1 week (7 days), and 1 month (30 days). 

In 1 day (01/30/23), 1,307 out of 37,357 (3.5%) user NFT purchases had bridged from Ethereum, Arbitrum, or Optimism to Polygon within a 48 hour time span. In one week (01/23/23 – 01/30/23), 12,736 out of 312,235 (4.1%) users had bridged within 48 hours of interacting with the Seaport contract. In one month (01/2023), 62,731 out of 1,253,958 (5%) of users had bridged within 48 hours of purchasing an NFT.

While the percentages are low, it’s important to note that bridging is a fairly difficult concept — the average Web3 enthusiast looking to purchase an NFT wouldn’t know about the topic. Knowledge about the topic is only the first step though, actually bridging a token from one chain to another is a process that varies from chain to chain and may take hours to process. Given these considerations, it’s a surprise anyone would actually jump through these hoops to buy a digital asset.

SushiSwap:

We then performed our same analysis on SushiSwap, one of the largest DEX’s by volume. SushiSwap allows users to swap tokens or add liquidity through their smart contracts. We focused on SushiSwap’s Polygon router contract (0x1b02da8cb0d097eb8d57a175b88c7d8b47997506) for the data below.

The following data represents ERC20 ownership across 4 chains for the most recent and most active SushiSwap users respectively:

For token ownership across multiple chains, we saw a similar pattern to OpenSea. Users on average hold a variety of more tokens on Arbitrum, Optimism, and Ethereum than on Polygon. Again, given the liquidity locked up on other chains, this is a barrier to entry for users looking to add liquidity or swap via SushiSwap on Polygon using their tokens on other chains.

To complete the picture, we studied user bridging patterns prior to interacting with the SushiSwap router from Arbitrum, Optimism, and Ethereum to Polygon within a 1 day, 1 week, and 1 month period. We found that in 1 day (01/30/23), 297 of 1707 (17.4%) contract calls had bridged within 48 hours of interacting with the SushiSwap router contract. In 1 week, 3,049 of 23,130 (13.2%) contract calls had bridged within 48 hours. In 1 month, 21,082 out of 91,678 (23%) contract calls had bridged within 48 hours. The data showed a fairly significant percentage of users bridging before swapping their tokens or providing liquidity via SushiSwap.

How Brydge Can Help:

As we saw in our analyses above, a significant portion of users own multiple tokens on multiple chains and even bridge those tokens over before interacting with these protocols. For OpenSea, Brydge would allow users to buy an NFT using any token on Ethereum, Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum, Avalanche, or even their credit card with our purchase widget. 

For SushiSwap, Brydge would abstract bridges away from users, allowing them to deposit into any liquidity pool using any token on the chains listed above with our liquidity pool widget. 

Eliminating the barriers to entry in crypto is a necessary step to ensure the industry grows as a whole. Reducing the frictions users must endure in order to interact with different blockchain applications allows for a better user experience and increases user retention. Our mission at Brydge is to make the user onboarding experience as simple and effective as possible. We bundle complex infrastructure like bridging, token swapping, gas, and contract calls into one click — eliminating complexity for the user and bringing in more revenue for our integrators. For more information on our product, check out our website: www.brydge.network