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Polkadot Growth Index š
Hello Builders!
Intro
We would like to propose and initiate discussion on a proposal that intends to support the growth of Polkadot ecosystem through an on-chain analytics tool that provides growth insights about specific dApps, Relay chains and parachains, while increasing transparency for the community.
This proposal is a continuation and extension of the ongoing work carried out by Tokenguard for the Polkadot ecosystem throughĀ OpenGovĀ &Ā W3F grants.
The Challenge
The growth of the entire Polkadot ecosystem, individual parachains and each dApp is related to users and the TVL they bring. The Polkadot ecosystem currently lacks a user-friendly on-chain analytics tool that addresses those issues, which has been addressed several times by theĀ communityĀ andĀ W3F.
In recent months, Tokenguard has undertaken numerous interviews with ecosystem builders to understand thechallenges they are facing and analytics needs that could accelerate growth of the ecosystem.
"We would like to understand, from an aggregate (not individual) level, the activities our users do, and the patterns in their behavior. I.e. they may do regular token, defi, social or nft activity. We would also like to understand which on-chain activities are done manually vs automated using bots. Understanding the patterns can help us optimize the features of our software to streamline important use cases and provide a better user experience."
"We would like to track new users. Where the users are coming from. How did the user fund their account. Correlation between users of different apps."
These and other answers revealed the problems and challenges of builders associated with the lack of analytics tools in the ecosystem:
Ā Ā ā lack of transparency for the community
Ā Ā ā lack of knowledge of user conversion
Ā Ā ā high cost of a self-built analytics tool $50k-$150k
Ā Ā ā fewer users due to a lack of knowledge of where they come from and how to target them
Ā Ā ā lower TVL and funds inflow to the ecosystem
Ā Ā ā lack of tools displaying on-chain data suitable for social media promotion
The Solution
Tokenguard proposes the integration of two existing growth analytics tools: theĀ Ecosystem Growth IndexĀ andĀ dApp Analytics for the Polkadot & Kusama Relay chains and three parachains with Smart Contract functionalities that are presently drawing significant user, fund, and builder attention. The solutions are currently used for 10 other chains and 25+ dApps. The presented solutions will provide insights into the growth of individual Parachains and dApps, aiding in the acquisition ofĀ new users and funds, and offering valuable insights for enhancing the retention of existing users.
The solution is ideal for promotional purposes and attracts the attention of new users to the ecosystem and dApps.
We value your feedback and are looking forward to supporting the ecosystem š„
Comments (4)
Hello @Tokenguard,
Thank you for the proposal. Although I understand the necessity explained in the proposal and find the team well-suited for the solution, I must reject the proposal for the following reasons.
I find the requested amount reasonable, but I doubt the necessity of an additional data analysis effort when we have multiple teams working at this front.
Best regards,
kukabi | Helikon
Hey @š HELIKON šĀ !
Thank you for your comment and raising these important points. Our answers below:
We want to clarify that yes, the integration of data from other chains and dApps was facilitated by an external data provider upon request from a customer, who covered the costs in a private grant. Unfortunately, this data provider doesn't collect relay and parachain data and due to the fully decentralized nature of the Polkadot itself, this proposal is the only way to expand our support.
We acknowledge the importance of the integration of Dune as a milestone for covering the entire ecosystem with analytics. However, we'd like to emphasize that while Dune is a valuable tool, it serves a different purpose compared to Tokenguard:
šµ Financially-wise: Tokenguard will produce around 100 (dApps) x 52 (weeks) = 5200 data-related insights for dApp builders. Safely assuming 0.5-1h of a senior data analyst work every week with an hourly rate of $80h, this translates into $312 000 spent on analyzing the data, not including user insights or comparison features. This grant is ~50% of this value, around 20x less than Dune integration.
This proposal was created after discussions with multiple Substrate teams - including SubWallet, AZero.ID, Common DeX, Abax Finance, Nightly and others (can't share specific quotes here over privacy concerns). Dune is a wonderful tool but taking into consideration its size, we don't think it can answer very specific needs of Substrate dApp builders the way Tokenguard can.
Tokenguard uses SubSquid - a native & decentralized Polkadot project that is widely known, whereas Dune is a fully centralized entity. We believe that the Polkadot ecosystem should embrace diversity as monopolizing solutions could hinder progress and innovation.
Thank you once again for your feedback. We remain committed to the growth and development of the Polkadot ecosystem š„
Best regards,
Kamil | Tokenguard CEO
Hello - I wanted to provide some feedback on the proposal. It seems like the Tokenguard service is currently oriented towards a smart contract model, which you might find on ethereum, or a smart-contracts focused parachain like Moonbeam or a solochain. like Aleph Zero or Vara. I believe Polkadot to be structured differently, because the model of user interactions centers around not just smart contracts, but pallets, contracts and XCM across chains. Not to mention being architected as a relay chain, system chains, parachains and then application-specific chains/cores in the future, with the relay chain eventually becoming a chain with minimal features. I believe smart contracts will be important on various chains (e.g. pop, OpenEVM, etc.), but they do not seem to be the basis of activity today in Polkadot. For example, I believe the functionality frequently used on Polkadot today consists of opengov and staking on the relaychain, swapping/DCA on Hydra, LSDs on Acala/Bifrost, EVM/Swaps on Moonbeam, etc, as well as the XCM activities that help assets to flow around. I have not seen from the proposal that this activity is going to be tracked/measured by the development of the proposal, so it may not be measuring the growth of the ecosystem properly. If I am mistaken, could you list out the extrinsics that will be captured here beyond just smart contracts? Finally, as much as I appreciate what Vara is doing, as a solochain, I believe it is not a fit for funding by the Polkadot treasury for this particular purpose.
Hi @W1ZSPR3Ā
Thank you for bringing up these important topics!
At the outset, we wanted to point out that each analytics tool serves a different purpose; it is impossible to use one tool to meet every need.
Tokenguard provides on-chain growth analytics focused on wallet conversion and behavior analysis. The aim of this proposal is to support ecosystem and builders where the traffic is highest, thus allowing to yield the greatest benefits due to ample data for analysis.
In the screenshot below, you'll find ecosystems with the highest user activity. Tokenguard proposes to cover the top 5 of these ecosystems.
Tokenguard delivers insights comparable to other ecosystems & dApps competitive to Polkadot. This allows to understand what type of dApps bring in most users into different ecosystems and how this translates into TVL / fees generated for the ecosystem.
Creating analytics for parachain-specific scenarios, where we deal with vastly different palettes and purposes of specific parachains is useful but would basically cover only a small % of the user traffic. Dune is being implemented into Polkadot to build analytics for this purpose.
Tokenguard supports XCMs the same wasy as Wormhole (https://app.tokenguard.io/wormhole/dapp-growth/) and other XC technologies.
Tokenguard supports all type of extrinsics and includes them into metrics (asset flow is included in TVL) - but for the sake of clarity we donāt display all of them as most of the traffic is generated by transfers, staking and dApps. Most ecosystem teams don't have time to analyze 0.1% of the traffic because bringing in 1 successful dApp is much more effective.
Thanks!
Kamil