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 Average trading volume (per user) Methodology

## 1. Overview

Average trading volume (per user) measures the mean trading activity generated by each unique user within a fixed 24-hour window. This metric is calculated by dividing the total daily trading volume by the number of active users (daily) for CoW Protocol. It serves as a key indicator of the user profile, where higher averages typically suggest institutional or whale activity, while lower averages are characteristic of retail-driven platforms.

## 2. Data sources

- **Blockchain events**: `Trade` events from `GPv2Settlement` contracts, as well as `OrderPlacement` events and `createOrder` function calls from `CoWSwapEthFlow` contracts, covering Ethereum, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Base, and 5 other chains
- **External data**: End-of-day price feeds for asset valuation and metadata for decimal normalization

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Trade and trader identification

- **Purpose**: Identify individual swaps and the unique users responsible for them
- **Logic**: `Trade` events are parsed from `GPv2Settlement` contracts to extract order identifiers and swap details. To accurately identify the transaction sender, these events are joined with `OrderPlacement` events and `createOrder` function calls from `CoWSwapEthFlow` contracts. The user address is determined by prioritizing the sender identified in the order-specific contracts, falling back to the owner specified in the settlement event if necessary. Specific denylisted assets are excluded at this stage to maintain data integrity.
- **Key fields**: `order_uid`, `in_sender`, `in_owner`, `transaction_hash`

### Component B: Daily active user calculation

- **Purpose**: Count the unique number of users interacting with the protocol daily
- **Logic**: Unique user addresses are aggregated from the identified trade records. A daily count of these unique addresses is performed, grouped by a 24-hour UTC window. This result represents the active users (daily) used as the denominator in the final calculation.
- **Key fields**: `user_address`, `block_timestamp`

### Component C: Daily trading volume calculation

- **Purpose**: Calculate the total value of trades processed by the protocol
- **Logic**: Sell and buy amounts are extracted from `Trade` events and normalized by decimal precision. To mitigate the impact of price manipulation or illiquid asset pairs, the trading volume for each individual swap is calculated as the lesser USD value between the sell token and the buy token. These values are aggregated daily using end-of-day price feeds.
- **Key fields**: `in_sellAmount`, `in_buyAmount`, `in_sellToken`, `in_buyToken`

### Component D: Final aggregation and normalization

- **Purpose**: Derive the average volume per user and format the output
- **Logic**: The total daily trading volume is divided by the daily active user count for each respective day. The resulting values are normalized and formatted, with zero-filling applied to any days where no trading activity is recorded.
- **Key fields**: `trading_volume`, `user_dau`

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

Average trading volume (per user)

Trading volume divided by daily active users.

CoW ProtocolCOW

Average trading volume (per user)

Average trading volume (per user)

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