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Tezos transactions and smart contract activity surge on NFT demand

February 2, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Activity

Smart contract activity in the Tezos ecosystem has surged over the past year as it becomes a magnet for NFT activity.

The Tezos network has seen impressive growth over the past 12 months in smart contract addresses and general adoption, primarily driven by non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Activity within the Proof-of-Stake ecosystem has had a spurt of growth recently as it aims to compete with Ethereum for NFT minting and markets.

According to Coin Metrics’ “State of the Network” report on Feb. 1, the number of transactions involving smart contracts has surged over the past 12 months to more than 50,000 per day from less than 10,000 per day in January 2021.

The report observed that the growth has been driven by NFT platforms such as the generative art platform FX Hash seeing increased interest. Additionally, gaming giant Ubisoft also announced Tezos support for gaming NFTs in December.

High Ethereum network fees are driving NFT creators and buyers to alternative networks such as Tezos. The network has a portal for all Tezos-based NFT marketplaces which it claims are “carbon-neutral” with network fees that are “less than a penny.” NFTs have caused controversy due to the environmental issues around minting and trading them on Proof-of-Work networks. Tezos has been widely touted as an alternative to alleviate these concerns.

Active addresses on the network are at an all-time high of over 45,000 while active smart contract addresses have tripled from under 200,000 to over 600,000 over the past 12 months. This highlights the growth in NFT and DApps that are using Tezos.

The research also measured the total number of daily transactions which it labeled as ‘other transactions’. This figure spiked in August 2021 when the network launched an upgrade cutting block times in half. From a steady 40,000 daily transactions, it surged to over 250,000 and has remained at those levels ever since.

According to the platform’s own tracker, the current daily transaction figure is 309,431, less than a quarter of the daily transactions on Ethereum which is currently 1.17 million according to Etherscan.

The report also charted the number of addresses containing more than at least 1 XTZ. This has recently surpassed 300,000, increasing 150% from the same time last year.

Tezos was launched in 2018 as an ‘energy efficient’ proof-of-stake network that uses a system called ‘baking’ to validate and publish new blocks on the chain.

Its native token, XTZ, has gained 6.7% over the past 24 hours to trade at $3.77 according to CoinGecko. XTZ is currently 58.6% below its Oct. 4 all-time high of $9.12.

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Polygon briefly overtakes Ethereum for active addresses after 330% surge

September 30, 2021 Coin Telegraph

addresses

Layer two aggregator Polygon has seen a 330% surge in active addresses over the past 3 months.

Layer two protocols have seen monumental growth this year and one of them has briefly surpassed the network it is a scaling solution for, in terms of active addresses.

The number of daily active unique addresses on layer two aggregator Polygon has surpassed those on the high fee layer one Ethereum according to protocol co-founder Mihailo Bjelic.

According to his stats, Polygon had 351,000 daily active addresses on Sept. 27 whereas Ethereum had 326,000.

Another huge milestone for @0xPolygon!

We eclipsed Ethereum L1 in daily active addresses for the first time!

This is just the beginning. We are working round the clock to improve our tech, strengthen our ecosystem and increase adoption.

Let's bring the world to Ethereum! pic.twitter.com/K4sAF1y3LT
— Mihailo Bjelic (@MihailoBjelic) September 29, 2021

According to Polygonscan, the number of active addresses skyrocketed on Sept. 20, hitting a peak of 426,586 on the 27th before falling back slightly to 385,740.

Etherscan is reporting that Ethereum’s daily active address count was 457,402 on Sept. 29 so the two are pretty evenly matched at the moment.

The number of active addresses on Polygon has surged 330% over the past 3 months whereas Ethereum’s have actually declined by 12% for the same metric over the same period.

In terms of cumulative unique addresses, Ethereum is way ahead with 170.8 million as of Sept. 29 according to Etherscan, while Polygon had 89 million total district addresses yesterday. However, Matic only rebranded to Polygon and launched in February so its growth has occurred over a shorter period of time.

Polygon has a greater number of transactions at present according to Polygonscan with 5.7 million total transactions recorded for Sept. 29 compared to 1.1 million on Ethereum layer one. This can largely be attributed to Ethereum’s high fees which have increased again recently.

DeFiLlama currently reports that the total value locked of all protocols on Polygon is $4.81 billion, however it has more than halved since its mid-June all-time high of $10.54 billion. The most popular protocol on the network is flash loan platform Aave which has $1.77 billion TVL, or 37% of the total.

Polygon received a massive endorsement in May when billionaire investor Mark Cuban added it to his portfolio. Its native token, which is still called MATIC, has gained 5.2% over the past 24 hours to reach $1.14 according to CoinGecko.

Ethereum transaction fees have skyrocketed again in recent days which has contributed to the surge in activity on layer two protocols. According to Bitinfocharts, the average transaction price on the Ethereum network is currently around $23. More complex operations such as DEX token swapping or smart contract interactions can cost as much as $66 in gas according to Etherscan.

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