Axelar Network node operators validate cross-chain transactions. They currently take a cut of transfer fees (supply-side fees).

Axelar Network is an interoperability protocol that allows for decentralized transfers of data and assets between blockchains. Axelar Network was founded by Sergey Gorbunov and Georgios Vlachos, and was launched in 2022. This dashboard currently only includes data for the following chains: Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, BNB Chain, Celo, Ethereum, Fantom, Optimism, and Polygon.

AXL tokenholders own and govern the protocol. They currently take a cut of transfer fees paid by transfer senders (revenue). Axelar Network’s investors include Polychain Capital, Dragonfly Capital, North Island Ventures, etc.

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Axelar Network

# Axelar Network Average fees per user (AFPU) Methodology

## 1. Overview

AFPU measures the average fees paid per daily active user on the Axelar network. Axelar is a cross-chain interoperability protocol that enables General Message Passing (GMP) and token transfers between blockchains. The metric calculates daily revenue from validator fees divided by the number of unique users, providing insight into revenue efficiency per user. The calculation follows the formula: AFPU = Total Daily Fees / Daily Active Users.

## 2. Data sources

- **Axelar Gateway contract events**: Parsed events from Axelar Gateway contracts deployed on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, BSC, Celo, Fantom, Optimism, and Polygon including `ContractCallWithToken`, `ContractCall`, `Gateway_Executed`, and `Gateway_TokenSent` events
- **Token transfer events**: Token transfer records from all supported blockchains to capture associated token movements with GMP transactions
- **Transaction data**: Blockchain transaction records to identify user addresses that initiated Axelar operations
- **End-of-day price feeds**: AXL token price data for converting fees from native tokens to USD
- **Token metadata**: Token information including symbols and decimal places for proper value calculations

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Transaction identification and counting
- **Purpose**: Identify all Axelar network transactions across supported chains and count unique transactions
- **Logic**: Extract three types of Axelar operations from Gateway contract events. First, GMP messaging transactions are identified through `ContractCallWithToken` and `ContractCall` events. Second, destination chain transfers are captured via `Gateway_Executed` events that occur when tokens arrive at destination chains. Third, source chain transfers are identified through `Gateway_TokenSent` events when tokens are sent from source chains. For source chain transfers, transactions are filtered to exclude destinations that are EVM chains tracked by Token Terminal to avoid double-counting with destination chain events. All transaction records are joined with blockchain transaction data to obtain user addresses and with token transfer events to capture associated token movements. Only transactions with positive token transfer values are included.
- **Key fields**: `transaction_hash` for deduplication, `user_address` from transaction records, `block_timestamp` for daily aggregation, `chain` for multi-chain tracking

### Component B: Fee calculation
- **Purpose**: Calculate total daily fees generated from Axelar network usage
- **Logic**: Fees are derived from the transaction count using Axelar's fee model where each GMP transaction incurs a 0.2 AXL fee paid to validators. The transaction count is multiplied by 0.1 to avoid double-counting, then by 0.2 AXL per transaction to get total AXL fees. This fee calculation uses the AXL token contract address on Ethereum for pricing reference. The AXL fees are then converted to USD using end-of-day AXL token price feeds and the standard decimal correction process.
- **Key fields**: `transaction_count` from aggregated unique transactions, `fees` calculated as transaction_count × 0.1 × 0.2 AXL, USD conversion using AXL price feeds

### Component C: Daily active user calculation  
- **Purpose**: Count unique users who performed any Axelar network operation on each day
- **Logic**: Combine user addresses from all three transaction types - GMP messaging, destination chain transfers, and source chain transfers. Extract the `user_address` field (which corresponds to the transaction sender) from each transaction record. Users are deduplicated across all transaction types using HyperLogLog aggregation to handle the large scale of cross-chain address tracking. The aggregation creates multiple dimensional breakdowns including project-level, chain-level, user-type-level, and product-level views while maintaining accurate deduplication.
- **Key fields**: `user_address` as the unique identifier, `timestamp` truncated to day grain for daily aggregation, HyperLogLog sketches for efficient deduplication

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: The AFPU calculation uses the `calculate_arpu` macro which divides the daily fees component by the daily active users component. Both components are aggregated to the same daily timestamp grain before division.
- **Currency conversion**: All fees are converted from AXL tokens to USD using end-of-day price feeds for the AXL token. The conversion applies standard decimal correction and uses the AXL contract address on Ethereum as the price reference.
- **Time aggregation**: All data is aggregated to daily boundaries using timestamp truncation to day level. Missing days are filled with zeros using the fill_zeros strategy.
- **Final calculation**: AFPU equals total daily fees in USD divided by the count of unique daily active users. The result represents the average fee revenue generated per user on each day across the entire Axelar network.

*This methodology was automatically generated by Token Terminal's methodology analyzer.*

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Average fees per user (AFPU)

Average fees per user (AFPU)

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