Validators process & store the uploaded data and collect upload & storage fees from data uploaders (supply-side fees).

Swarm is a data storage network built on Gnosis. Swarm was founded by Viktor Tron, Jeffrey Wilcke and Daniel A. Nagy and launched in 2016.

BZZ tokenholders own and govern the protocol. They currently don’t take a cut of the fees paid by data uploaders.

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Infrastructure

Swarm

# Swarm Expenses Methodology

## 1. Overview

Swarm expenses represent the daily USD value of token rewards distributed by the Swarm network to node operators who win redistribution rounds. This metric captures the network's operational costs in the form of BZZ token incentives paid out through the redistribution mechanism. The calculation identifies legitimate reward transfers from Swarm's postage stamp contract to winners of redistribution events, then converts these token amounts to USD values.

## 2. Data sources

- **Gnosis chain token transfer events**: Token transfer records showing the movement of BZZ tokens between addresses
- **Swarm redistribution events**: Parsed `WinnerSelected` events from Swarm's redistribution smart contract on Gnosis chain that identify legitimate reward winners
- **End-of-day token price feeds**: Daily USD pricing data for BZZ tokens used for currency conversion
- **Token metadata**: Decimal precision information for accurate token amount calculations

## 3. Step-by-step calculation

### Component A: Winner transaction identification
- **Purpose**: Identify legitimate redistribution winner transactions to filter out non-reward transfers
- **Logic**: Extract all `WinnerSelected` events from Swarm's redistribution contract on Gnosis chain. Each event represents a successful redistribution round where a node operator has won rewards. The `transaction_hash` from these events creates a whitelist of transactions that contain legitimate reward payouts.
- **Key fields**: `transaction_hash` serves as the primary identifier linking winner events to reward transfers

### Component B: Reward transfer extraction
- **Purpose**: Identify and extract the actual BZZ token transfers that represent reward payouts
- **Logic**: Filter token transfers on Gnosis chain to include only transfers that originate FROM the postage stamp contract address `0x30d155478ef27ab32a1d578be7b84bc5988af381` AND occur within winner transactions identified in Component A. This ensures only legitimate reward distributions are captured, not other token movements. Each transfer record includes the transfer amount, timestamp, and transaction details.
- **Key fields**: `value` contains the raw token transfer amount, `block_timestamp` provides timing, `transaction_hash` links to winner events, `from_address` confirms the source is the postage stamp contract

### Component C: Token amount processing and USD conversion
- **Purpose**: Convert raw token transfer amounts to standardized USD values
- **Logic**: Take the raw transfer amounts and apply decimal correction based on BZZ token metadata to convert from native blockchain units to human-readable token amounts. Then convert these token amounts to USD using end-of-day price feeds that correspond to the transfer date. The conversion process accounts for the 18-decimal precision of BZZ tokens.
- **Key fields**: `amount` represents the decimal-corrected token quantity, `token_incentives` contains the final USD value

### Component D: Daily aggregation and metadata assignment
- **Purpose**: Aggregate transfers into daily totals and apply consistent business categorization
- **Logic**: Group all reward transfers by day using timestamp truncation to daily boundaries. Sum the USD values of all transfers within each day to create daily expense totals. Apply consistent metadata including business line designation as 'Infrastructure', market sector as 'infrastructure', and adjust the chain identifier from 'ethereum' to 'gnosis' to reflect the actual blockchain where transactions occur.
- **Key fields**: `timestamp` truncated to day level, `token_incentives` aggregated as daily sums, `chain_id` set to 'gnosis'

### Final aggregation
- **Combining components**: The daily aggregated USD values of reward transfers flow through without additional combination, as there's only one component contributing to expenses
- **Currency conversion**: USD conversion occurs using end-of-day price feeds matched to the date of each token transfer, ensuring accurate historical valuations
- **Time aggregation**: Data is aggregated to daily boundaries using timestamp truncation, with all transfers within a calendar day summed together
- **Final calculation**: The final expenses metric equals the daily sum of USD-converted BZZ token rewards distributed through the Swarm redistribution mechanism. Missing days are filled with zero values to maintain continuous time series data. The `token_incentives` field is renamed to `expenses` in the final output to reflect the business meaning of these token distributions as operational expenses.

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

Total project operating and incentive expenses.

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Expenses

Expenses

Competitive landscape