0x Ecosystem Update, September 2020
Welcome 👋 to the September 2020 ecosystem update from 0x Tracker, a monthly review of happenings from the 0x ecosystem. Each month we provide 0x trading insights and news from across the 0x ecosystem.
📈 Trading Insights
0x metrics across the board continued on an upward trajectory during September… total volume is up 78% from $515.4 to $917.7 million, total trades were up 33% from 60k to 80k, and generated protocol earnings were up 18% from 250 ETH to 295 ETH 🚀
Average trade sizes moved upwards from $8,600 in August to $11,400 in September, a 33% increase. 0x Tracker was given a small update to help illustrate the connection between average trade size, volume, and how this evolves over time…
0x is increasingly supporting larger and larger trades. In the August Ecosystem Update we noted that there had been 5 trades over $1 million. In September this number has increased to 24, accounting for over $66 million in volume.
Volume this month was largely driven by Tokenlon ($420 million — 45.8%) and Matcha ($381 million — 41.5%). 0x API has been standing on its own feet though with $74 million (8%) in volume, proving its utility to the wider ecosystem and not just Matcha.
Trading volume has also been bolstered by increased consumption of networked liquidity pulled from third-party on-chain sources like Curve, Sushiswap, and Uniswap. In August, 18% of liquidity was sourced from third party sources. In September that figure increased to almost 40% ($354.9 million). At the time of writing, over a third of liquidity in the past 30 days was sourced from Curve liquidity pools.
Finally, moving onto active traders. The methodology used to track active traders on 0x Tracker has been sub-optimal for a while now which meant some figures were being underreported. Increases in the use of taker proxy contracts served to mask the actual end-user addresses, distorting figures. For example, Tokenlon would regularly report active users in the teens despite being the most active relayer built on top of 0x.
The good news is that thanks to a recent 0x Tracker update, built in collaboration with the 0x team, these figures are now much more accurate…
We see that monthly active users hit an all-time high in September. Increasing 53% from 9.5k to 14.5k 🎉 This was largely driven by Tokenlon following their announcement of LON on September 25th which preceded a big spike in active users the following day.
🗺 Ecosystem News
- The monthly 0x developer and governance meeting for September was published to YouTube. Lots was discussed on the call this month including Bunnyhop (a new feature for optimising price discovery), a Radar Relay margin trading demo, and various governance proposals.
- Matcha was updated with a bunch of new features including price comparisons, more x-ray depth charts, and increased customisation options for trade execution.
- Tokenlon (currently the largest relayer on 0x) introduced the LON token which is designed to build community and incentivise growth within their ecosystem.
- Tokenlon also provided some interesting insight into how their custom RFQ system (built on top of 0x) helps increase price certainty and decrease transaction failures.
- 0x API increased the number of supported liquidity sources to 13, adding Sushiswap into the mix. Networked liquidity continues to drive growth in the 0x ecosystem.
- The 0x core team have been working hard behind the scenes to optimise 0x API and its associated smart contracts. Fulvia from the 0x team published this very comprehensive analysis of 0x API performance versus other DEX aggregators. TLDR? — “7 out of 10 times 0x API offers better adjusted prices than 1inch, Dex Ag, Paraswap and Uniswap. That is, the price after transaction fees are paid.”
- Brent from the 0x team interviewed Joey Zacherl, founder of VolleyFire, one of the leading market makers on 0x.
- …and creeping into October slightly, 0x API v1 is now released 🎉
🎬 Wrapping Up
That’s it for September, stay tuned for another update next month. If you enjoyed this update then consider subscribing to the newsletter to receive the monthly update direct to your inbox.
