In order to bring determinism to the oracle layer, Chainlink has developed a network of decentralized oracle networks (DONs), with each DON involving a combination of multiple security techniques needed to service a particular use case.
The Chainlink stack supports multiple open standards for designing and operating oracle services, which currently span four key verticals: 1) Data, 2) Interoperability, 3) Compliance, and 4) Privacy. Built upon these standards exists an ever-expanding collection of modular, purpose-built oracle services, which can be easily created and seamlessly composed using the Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE). CRE is a developer platform and decentralized execution environment for running, managing, and composing oracle services into scalable end-to-end solutions, which run in a highly secure, reliable, and cryptographically verifiable manner.

Chainlink is the industry-standard oracle platform bringing the capital markets onchain and powering the majority of decentralized finance (DeFi). The Chainlink stack provides the essential data, interoperability, compliance, and privacy standards needed to power advanced blockchain use cases for institutional tokenized assets, lending, payments, stablecoins, and more. Since inventing decentralized oracle networks, Chainlink has enabled tens of trillions in transaction value and now secures the vast majority of DeFi. 
Many of the world’s largest financial services institutions have also adopted Chainlink’s standards and infrastructure, including Swift, Euroclear, Mastercard, Fidelity International, UBS, ANZ, and top protocols such as Aave, GMX, Lido, and many others. Chainlink leverages a novel fee model where offchain and onchain revenue from enterprise adoption is converted to LINK tokens and stored in a strategic Chainlink Reserve. Learn more at chain.link.

Chainlink is not a governance protocol. Chainlink is an open-sourced platform of standards developers leverage to build next-generation onchain applications. It is developed and maintained by Chainlink Labs and a broader community of contributors. While there is no onchain token-based governance like in some DeFi protocols, the direction of the protocol is guided by core developers, researchers, and ecosystem partners, with feedback from the community.

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Interoperability

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# Chainlink Average fees per user (AFPU) Methodology

## 1. Overview

Average Fees Per User (AFPU) measures the average daily fees generated per active user on the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (Cross-Chain Interoperabilty Protocol (CCIP)). The amount of revenue generated per active user on average each day is identified by this metric. Total daily fees are divided by the number of active users (daily), providing insight into user monetization efficiency across cross-chain infrastructure services.

## 2. Data sources

- **Fees**: Derived from the Fees metric, covering Ethereum, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, Monad, and 3 other chains
- **Active users (daily)**: Derived from the Active users (daily) metric, covering Ethereum, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, Berachain, and 17 other chains

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Active users (daily) calculation

- **Purpose**: Identifies and counts unique users interacting with the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (Cross-Chain Interoperabilty Protocol (CCIP)) daily
- **Logic**: The `sender` field is extracted from the message struct within `CCIPSendRequested` events from `EVM2EVMOnRamp` contracts and `CCIPMessageSent` events from `OnRampV3` contracts, and from `CCIPMessageSent` events from `OnRampCCIP2` contracts across all supported chains and contract versions. These events are emitted when users initiate cross-chain messages through the Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (Cross-Chain Interoperabilty Protocol (CCIP)). Users are identified by the wallet address that initiated the cross-chain transaction. Events are processed from multiple contract versions including PreLaunch, V1, V2, V3, and CCIP2 implementations across twenty-two blockchain networks.
- **Key fields**: `sender` (user wallet address from message struct), `block_timestamp` (for daily aggregation), `chain` (source blockchain), `user_type` (categorized as "Message sender")

### Component B: Cross-chain fee collection

- **Purpose**: Captures fees paid for Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (Cross-Chain Interoperabilty Protocol (CCIP)) cross-chain transactions from event logs
- **Logic**: Fee amounts are extracted from the `feeTokenAmount` field within the message struct of `CCIPSendRequested` events. These fees are paid by users to cover the cost of cross-chain message delivery. The `feeToken` address is also captured to identify which asset was used for payment. Events are filtered to exclude removed or invalid transactions and are collected across all supported chains and contract versions.
- **Key fields**: `feeTokenAmount` (fee amount paid), `feeToken` (token address used for payment), `account_address` (contract address that processed the fee)

### Component C: Aggregator fee collection

- **Purpose**: Captures additional fees collected through Chainlink's fee aggregator contract on Ethereum
- **Logic**: ERC-20 `Transfer` events directed to the Chainlink fee aggregator contract address on Ethereum are monitored. This captures fees that are consolidated from various sources into a central collection point. These transfers are identified by filtering for the specific aggregator contract address as the recipient.
- **Key fields**: `value` (transferred fee amount), `token_address` (asset used for payment), `to_address` (aggregator contract address)

### Component D: Cross-chain route mapping

- **Purpose**: Maps fee-paying contracts to their destination chains for route analysis
- **Logic**: `OnRampSet` events from `Router` contracts are used to create mappings between on-ramp contract addresses and destination chain selectors. This enables the categorization of fees by cross-chain routes. A lookup table of chain selector IDs is maintained to map to human-readable chain names, defaulting to "Other" for unmapped destinations.
- **Key fields**: `onRamp` (contract address), `destChainSelector` (destination chain identifier), route categorization as "Chain A - Chain B" format

### Component E: Final aggregation and conversion

- **Purpose**: Combines all components to calculate the final average fee per user
- **Logic**: Cross-chain fees are joined with route mappings to add destination context. Both Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (Cross-Chain Interoperabilty Protocol (CCIP)) event fees and aggregator fees are combined into a unified dataset and grouped by day and chain. All fee amounts are normalized by decimal precision and converted to USD using end-of-day asset price feeds. LINK tokens on Polygon and BSC networks are mapped to Ethereum LINK prices for conversion. Daily fees in USD are divided by the count of active users (daily). Days with no activity are filled with zero values to maintain complete time series data.

*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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