# Polkadot Active users (daily) Methodology

## 1. Overview

The Polkadot daily active users (DAU) metric measures the number of unique user addresses that initiated at least one extrinsic (transaction) on any Polkadot ecosystem chain within a given day. This metric provides insight into daily user engagement across the entire Polkadot multi-chain ecosystem, including the relay chain and its parachains. The calculation aggregates user activity from six different chains and applies deduplication to ensure each unique address is counted only once per day, regardless of how many transactions they performed or across how many chains they were active.

## 2. Data sources

The calculation relies on raw blockchain transaction data from the Polkadot ecosystem:

- **Polkadot relay chain extrinsics**: Transaction records from the main Polkadot relay chain containing user addresses and block timestamps
- **Asset Hub parachain extrinsics**: Transaction records from Polkadot's Asset Hub parachain for asset-related activities
- **Collectives parachain extrinsics**: Transaction records from the Collectives parachain for governance and collective decision-making activities  
- **Bridge Hub parachain extrinsics**: Transaction records from the Bridge Hub parachain for cross-chain bridge operations
- **People parachain extrinsics**: Transaction records from the People parachain for identity and social features
- **Coretime parachain extrinsics**: Transaction records from the Coretime parachain for computational resource allocation

Each extrinsics table contains the transaction initiator's address (`id` field), block timestamp, and transaction hash for all on-chain activities within that specific chain.

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Relay chain user extraction
- **Purpose**: Identifies active users on the Polkadot relay chain
- **Logic**: Extracts user addresses from Polkadot relay chain extrinsics along with block timestamps. Casts the `id` field to string format as the `user_address` and converts `block_timestamp` to timestamp format. Assigns chain identifier as "polkadot" and sets metadata fields including market sector as "blockchains_l1", business segment as "blockchain", and product as "Polkadot Relay Chain". All users are classified as "Transaction sender" type.
- **Key fields**: `user_address` (transaction initiator), `block_timestamp` (when transaction occurred), `chain` (polkadot), `transaction_hash` (extrinsic hash)

### Component B: Asset hub user extraction  
- **Purpose**: Identifies active users on the Asset Hub parachain
- **Logic**: Extracts user addresses from Asset Hub extrinsics using identical logic to relay chain but with chain identifier "Polkadot AssetHub" and product "Polkadot AssetHub". Processes the same core fields of user address and block timestamp for user activity tracking.
- **Key fields**: `user_address` (transaction initiator), `block_timestamp` (when transaction occurred), `chain` (Polkadot AssetHub), `transaction_hash` (extrinsic hash)

### Component C: Collectives parachain user extraction
- **Purpose**: Identifies active users on the Collectives parachain  
- **Logic**: Extracts user addresses from Collectives parachain extrinsics with chain identifier "Polkadot Collectives" and product "Polkadot Collectives". Follows same extraction pattern as other chains for user activity data.
- **Key fields**: `user_address` (transaction initiator), `block_timestamp` (when transaction occurred), `chain` (Polkadot Collectives), `transaction_hash` (extrinsic hash)

### Component D: Bridge hub user extraction
- **Purpose**: Identifies active users on the Bridge Hub parachain
- **Logic**: Extracts user addresses from Bridge Hub extrinsics with chain identifier "Polkadot BridgeHub" and product "Polkadot BridgeHub". Uses consistent extraction methodology across all parachain data sources.
- **Key fields**: `user_address` (transaction initiator), `block_timestamp` (when transaction occurred), `chain` (Polkadot BridgeHub), `transaction_hash` (extrinsic hash)

### Component E: People parachain user extraction
- **Purpose**: Identifies active users on the People parachain
- **Logic**: Extracts user addresses from People parachain extrinsics with chain identifier "Polkadot People" and product "Polkadot People". Maintains consistent data structure and field mapping with other components.
- **Key fields**: `user_address` (transaction initiator), `block_timestamp` (when transaction occurred), `chain` (Polkadot People), `transaction_hash` (extrinsic hash)

### Component F: Coretime parachain user extraction  
- **Purpose**: Identifies active users on the Coretime parachain
- **Logic**: Extracts user addresses from Coretime parachain extrinsics with chain identifier "Polkadot Coretime" and product "Polkadot Coretime". Completes the comprehensive extraction across all six Polkadot ecosystem chains.
- **Key fields**: `user_address` (transaction initiator), `block_timestamp` (when transaction occurred), `chain` (Polkadot Coretime), `transaction_hash` (extrinsic hash)

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: All six chain user datasets are combined using UNION ALL operations to create a comprehensive view of user activity across the entire Polkadot ecosystem. Each user activity record maintains its chain origin while being part of the unified dataset.
- **Time aggregation**: Block timestamps are truncated to day granularity using timestamp truncation, which groups all transactions within the same calendar day together regardless of their specific time of occurrence.
- **Daily boundary logic**: The day boundary is determined by truncating timestamps to day level, ensuring consistent daily aggregation across different time zones and precise daily user counting.
- **Final calculation**: DISTINCT is applied to the combination of truncated timestamp (day) and `user_address` fields to count each unique user address only once per day. This deduplication ensures that users active on multiple chains or performing multiple transactions on the same day are counted as a single daily active user. The result provides the count of unique addresses that initiated at least one extrinsic on any Polkadot ecosystem chain within each day.
- **Incremental processing**: For efficiency, incremental updates use a lookback window to only process recent data while maintaining historical accuracy, and chain availability filters are applied to ensure data quality.

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

Unique revenue-generating users over a fixed 24-hour window.

Active users (daily)

Polkadot

Network participants process transactions and receive fees from users (supply-side fees).

Polkadot is a security & interoperability platform for blockchains and applications. Polkadot was founded by Gavin Wood and launched in 2020.

DOT holders own and govern the protocol. They currently take a cut of the total transaction fees paid by users (revenue). Polkadot’s investors include Polychain, IOSG Ventures, Hashkey, etc.

PolkadotDOT

Active users (daily)

Active users (daily)

Competitive landscape

Chain breakdown