Recently, there has been a lot of misinformation circulating about the number of DAUs (Daily Active Users) in Decentraland, reporting far below the actual number recorded by the Decentraland Foundation. Most of this comes down to the different approaches taken in defining what counts as an “active user”.
What are Active Users?
To count “active users”, Dapp Radar, a metaverse data tracking dashboard, looks at the number of unique wallet addresses interacting with some of Decentraland’s smart contracts. However, the list of contracts the tool was tracking was neither complete nor up-to-date, nor did it take into account one of the most common ways Decentraland users interacted with smart contracts: via metatransactions. did. *
Metatransactions allow users to interact with smart contracts without paying additional fees. An example of this is purchasing a wearable from the Decentraland Marketplace. Users only pay for the wearable and do not need to pay any transaction fees. This means that not one of Decentraland’s 6k+ wearable transactions in September was also counted by DappRadar, as the tool wasn’t counting metatransactions.
But even if the list of contracts being tracked is complete, the real problem with counting “active users” as the number of smart contract transactions is that people don’t just come to Decentraland and make transactions. is. Decentraland is a virtual social world where visitors explore, meet friends, attend events, and much more. These visits do not necessarily involve a transaction of any kind, and in fact may not provide linked wallet data that can be tracked by external parties if the user visits as a guest.that’s why The Decentraland Foundation defines an “active user” as someone who enters Decentraland and exits the first parcel they enter the world..
What is the best way to track DAUs in Decentraland?
At this time, there are no official public tools to track Decentraland’s exact DAUs. As already mentioned, DappRadar tracks some smart contract interactions, but this is not necessarily the best way to count “active users”. another data aggregator, WeMetawhich shows the number of concurrent active users or the number of users on a Decentraland server at a given time, but that’s not an easy term for most people, and simply doesn’t paint the same picture as the DAU or MAU industry standards. (Monthly Active Users).
Currently, one of the most accurate dashboards for approximating Decentraland’s DAU is DCL metrics, created by grantees of the Decentraland DAO. DCL Metrics aggregates DAU counts by taking snapshots of Decentraland’s Catalyst servers every 90 seconds and aggregating unique users over 24-hour cycles. Snapshots are taken only every 90 seconds, so there is a small margin of error, but the numbers reported in the DCL metrics are very similar to those recorded by the Decentraland Foundation itself, and represent the highest level of DAU data. Accurate public source. This time.
Understanding user data on Decentraland
According to internal data from the Decentraland Foundation, the current number of DAUs in Decentraland is around 8,000. When calculating this number, the Foundation does not count bot accounts or users that use script blockers (such as Ghostery). In September, 56,697 MAU, 6,315 wearables and 1,732 emotes were sold on the marketplace.
To fully understand what these numbers mean, it’s worth taking a little mental trip. First, dividing the September MAU count of 56,697 by 30 gives us the number 1,866. “That’s not an 8k DAU!” you laugh at yourself. But wait. If all of the 56,697 unique individuals were to visit Decentraland once in September, 1,866 would be his DAU number, which isn’t actually the case. Many of Decentraland’s users are repeat customers. They are his Decentraland community and regularly spend time on the platform.
Decentraland’s DAU numbers over the past year show an overall decline since the early metaverse hype in late 2021 when terms like “NFT”, “Web3” and “metaverse” were just beginning to be used It is true that It has a big presence in the mainstream. However, this is not surprising as the Metaverse is still in its early stages and still undergoing a lot of growth and development. Although the number of tourists and speculators visiting the Metaverse is declining, the core community of Metaverse citizens is steadily growing. The Metaverse may be new, but it’s certainly not a lonely place.
When discussing Decentraland’s DAU or MAU numbers, keep in mind that Decentraland is not a company and does not view users as a product to measure success. Decentraland is a DAO and the only open source Web3 metaverse platform owned and maintained by the community. That sentiment is best expressed in Decentraland’s mission statement.
Decentraland’s goal is to be a fun and interesting platform with a vibrant community educating and onboarding people to Web3 philosophy and technology. When the public realizes why decentralization is important, viable options will become available and the next iteration of the Internet will not be monopolized by a handful of companies.
*Since this issue came to light, The Decentraland Foundation has been in contact with DappRadar to work together to improve how DappRadar tracks transactions on Decentraland and to produce more accurate reports. Initially, DappRadar tracked only 13 of his Decentraland contracts, but now he tracks over 3,000 contracts and will begin working on ways to include metatransactions in tracking.
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