CoW Protocol batches trades and auctions them between public and private liquidity sources. It aims to achieve better prices than other exchanges by matching trades via Coincidences of Wants (CoWs) and protecting from MEV.

CoW Protocol is a meta-DEX aggregation protocol that acts as a batch settlement layer on top of all other AMMs & DEX aggregators. CoW Protocol is a spin off from Gnosis DAO that launched in February 2021.

COW tokenholders own and govern the protocol. They currently take a cut of the total trading fees paid by traders (revenue).

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CoW Protocol

# CoW Protocol Trade count Methodology

## 1. Overview

Trade count is measured as the number of trades executed on CoW Protocol. This metric indicates how frequently users buy or sell assets through the protocol's batch auction mechanism. It reflects the total volume of unique orders successfully settled by solvers across all supported networks.

## 2. Data sources

- **Blockchain events**: `Trade` events from `GPv2Settlement` contracts, plus `OrderPlacement` events and `createOrder` function calls from `CoWSwapEthFlow` contracts, covering Ethereum, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, and 5 other chains
- **External data**: Asset metadata for token identification

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Settlement event extraction

- **Purpose**: Identify successful trade executions on the blockchain
- **Logic**: `Trade` events are parsed from `GPv2Settlement` contracts across all supported chains. Each event represents a filled order within a settlement batch. The unique order identifier, owner address, and asset details are extracted from these events.
- **Key fields**: `orderUid` (unique identifier), `owner` (trader address), and `block_timestamp`

### Component B: Order and sender attribution

- **Purpose**: Map trade events to the original order placement and sender
- **Logic**: `OrderPlacement` events and `createOrder` function calls are extracted from `CoWSwapEthFlow` contracts to supplement trade data. This information is joined with the settlement events using the order identifier. This process ensures that the trade is correctly attributed to the originating sender address, particularly for specialized order types like ETH-to-asset swaps.
- **Key fields**: `transaction_hash`, `order_identification`, and `sender`

### Component C: Trade count aggregation

- **Purpose**: Calculate the final daily metric value
- **Logic**: The total count of distinct order identifiers is calculated on a daily basis. Any trades involving denylisted assets are filtered out of the final dataset. The results are aggregated by timestamp and chain, using UTC day boundaries for consistency.
- **Key fields**: `order_uid`, `timestamp`, and `chain_id`

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

Number of trades executed on a decentralized exchange.

CoW ProtocolCOW

Trade count

Trade count

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Chain breakdown