Alternative data
Alternative KPIs used to track the performance of protocols
Active users (daily)
What is this metric: Unique addresses that use the protocol's service on a daily basis.
How it is calculated: Number of unique addresses interacting with the protocol's business relevant smart contracts, sourced from onchain data.
Why do we show it: Important to know if there are 3 vs. 300k users, gives a better understanding of the protocol’s traction.
Example:

Arbitrum dashboard: https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/projects/arbitrum
Active users (weekly)
What is this metric: Unique addresses that use the protocol's service on a weekly basis, based on a 7-day rolling window.
How it is calculated: Number of unique addresses interacting with the protocol's business relevant smart contracts, sourced from onchain data.
Why do we show it: Important to know if there are 3 vs. 300k users, gives a better understanding of the protocol’s traction.
Example:

GMX dashboard: https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/projects/gmx
Active users (monthly)
What is this metric: Unique addresses that use the protocol's service on a monthly basis, based on a 30-day rolling window.
How it is calculated: Number of unique addresses interacting with the protocol's business relevant smart contracts, sourced from onchain data.
Why do we show it: Important to know if there are 3 vs. 300k users, gives a better understanding of the protocol’s traction.
Example:

Uniswap dashboard: https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/projects/uniswap
Active developers
What is this metric: Core developers that contribute to the protocol's public GitHub repositories.
How it is calculated: Number of distinct users that made 1+ commits to the protocol's public repositories during the past 30 days, sourced from GitHub.
Why do we show it: Important to know if there are 10 vs. 100 core developers, gives a better understanding of the contributor dependencies.
Example:

Flashbots dashboard: https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/projects/flashbots
Average transaction fee
What is this metric: Average fee per transaction.
How it is calculated: Transaction fees divided by transaction count.
Why do we show it: Indicates how much a user pays per transaction on average. This helps understand how the chain is used: a high average transaction fee may not be suitable for small everyday transactions, and may indicate that the chain is used as a final settlement layer instead (e.g., Ethereum).
Example:
](https://files.readme.io/73be869-image.png)
Ronin dashboard: https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/projects/ronin
Block time
What is this metric: Average time elapsed between the addition of successive blocks to a blockchain.
How it is calculated: Block timestamps are sourced from onchain data, and the time elapsed between successive blocks is calculated and averaged during a specified time period (e.g. a day).
Why do we show it: Block times influence how long users need to wait before their transactions are confirmed. A measure of how frequently new blocks are added to blockchains can be useful to compare different blockchains or evaluate the effect of upgrades on a particular chain. A deviation from "normal" parameters may coincide with periods of degraded performance or other technical issues.
Code commits
What is this metric: New commits to the protocol's public GitHub repositories.
How it is calculated: Number of commits to the protocol's public repositories, sourced from GitHub.
Why do we show it: Important to know if there are few vs. many regular commits, gives a better understanding of the pace of development.
Example:

Gitcoin dashboard: https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/projects/gitcoin
Contract deployers
What is this metric: Number of externally-owned accounts (EOAs) that initiate transactions where contract creations occur.
How it is calculated: Number of distinct EOAs initiating transactions where contract creations occur, sourced from onchain data.
Why do we show it: A proxy to the number of blockchain users deploying smart contracts.
Example:

Ethereum dashboard: https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/projects/ethereum
Liquidity turnover
What is this metric: Liquidity turnover is a measurement of how much trading volume a DEX facilitates relative to its total value locked.
How it is calculated: Trading volume divided by total value locked, sourced from onchain data.
Why do we show it: This metric provides a proxy for how capital-efficient a DEX is. A higher liquidity turnover can indicate higher capital efficiency, meaning that the DEX is able to facilitate relatively high trading volumes without having to attract as much liquidity.
Example:

Uniswap dashboard: https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/projects/uniswap
Tradeable assets
What is this metric: Tradeable assets is a metric for DEXs (Decentralized Exchanges). It measures the number of tradable tokens in deployed liquidity pools. These tokens are divided into cohorts based on the liquidity contained by their pools.
How it is calculated: The calculation process involves determining the cumulative count of unique token addresses derived from trading pair creation events. Token liquidities are then summed up based on net deposits, and the tokens are categorized into liquidity cohorts.
Why do we show it: This metric shows the coverage and liquidity distribution of available tradable assets in the exchange.
Example:

Uniswap dashboard: https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/projects/uniswap
Tradeable pairs
What is this metric: Tradable pairs is a metric for DEXs (Decentralized Exchanges). It measures the number of deployed trading pairs. These pairs are divided into cohorts based on liquidity.
How it is calculated: This metric is calculated by determining the cumulative count of unique account addresses from trading pair creation events. Pair liquidities are obtained from net deposits, and pairs are then categorized into liquidity cohorts for analysis.
Why do we show it: This metric illustrates the coverage and liquidity distribution of available tradable assets in the exchange.
Example:

Uniswap dashboard: https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/projects/uniswap
Transaction count
What is this metric: Number of onchain transactions.
How it is calculated: Number of unique transactions on the protocol in a given time period.
Why do we show it: Highlights the magnitude of onchain activity on the protocol.
Example:

BNB Chain dashboard: https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/projects/binance-smart-chain
Transactions per second
What is this metric: Number of transactions added to blockchains, per second.
How it is calculated: We count the number of transactions added to a blockchain during a specified time period (e.g. a day) and divide it by the number of seconds elapsed during that period.
Why do we show it: An indicator of demand for the chain's block space. Showcases periods of high levels of onchain activity, or, on the other hand, low onchain activity, either organic or due to periods of degraded performance or other technical issues.
Example:

BNB Chain dashboard: https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/projects/binance-smart-chain
Voting incentives
What is this metric: Voting incentives is a metric exclusively for DEXs with a ve(3,3) model. It measures all voting rewards received by vote-escrowed governance token holders from 3rd party protocols who wish to influence how the liquidity incentives are distributed.
How it is calculated: Sum of all voting rewards received by vote-escrowed governance token holders.
Why do we show it: This metric shows how much the vote-escrowed governance token holders of the DEX with a ve(3,3) model receive in return for directing liquidity incentives to selected pools.
Example:

Aerodrome dashboard: https://tokenterminal.com/terminal/projects/aerodrome
Updated 4 days ago