We at Okto are all about using data to make smart decisions. We rely on a bunch of different data sources like user surveys, market research, trends, and even publicly available blockchain data and are strongly community driven as we take our user feedback, and social media comments very seriously. Tapping into that blockchain data and analyzing it for decision-making to offer products from the user’s perspective has been a game-changer for us!

Simplifying User Experience

First off, we had a hunch that most tokens would be traded on a single chain. And guess what? Our analysis of eight major chains like BSC, Ethereum, Arbitrum, Fantom, Gnosis, Optimism, Polygon, and Avalanche confirmed it! We found that 96% of tokens are indeed traded on a single chain, with only stablecoins and few popular ones such USDC, USDT, ETH, LINK, AAVE, DAI, etc. being distributed across multiple chains.

Based on this finding, we designed a ‘simple’ experience, where we make chain decisions on behalf of customers. If the customer wants advanced options, they can still go deeper into the App and use all the controls. In addition, users also find better prices and less slippage due to higher liquidity on recommended chains. For example, we selected the BSC chain as the default for XRP, while for WETH, Polygon was selected as the default, with the option for the user to switch to FANTOM or BSC.

*For ETH, Polygon selected as default

*While, user can switch to FANTOM and BSC

*Interested in buying a token, follow this step by step guide “How to buy tokens using trade feature”

Swap experiences are complex for web2 audiences because they are built for NxN swaps, almost infinite combinations. Well, it turns out, our analysis of Pancake Swap and Uniswap protocols showed that over 95% of token swaps involved just 7-8 tokens, that too either native or stablecoins. Who would have thought? So, to streamline the swap experience, we focused on onboarding wrapped native tokens and stablecoin pools. Now, users can swap tokens using those trusty native and stable tokens, making their lives a whole lot simpler.

DeFi is complicated and has enormous use-cases. Our analysis of new wallet addresses indicates that most users start off* with simple and limited use-cases such as native token transfers, non-native transfers, mint, swaps, or claim airdrops, and not with complex ones. Gaming and NFT, although growing as a starter use-case, they didn't take the spotlight just yet. So enabling easy web2 experiences for use-cases like Earn, Swap, Buy with Fiat, NFT viewing, are what our team is focussing on.

*Only considering the transactions sent by users (excluding transactions received)

Other Data-Driven Decisions

On top of these, we've made plenty of other data-driven decisions at Okto.

• We carefully select protocols and pools based on on-chain data analysis to offer safe and high passive income opportunities, protecting our customers from any fraudulent business.
• We also compare transaction fees with other platforms to ensure we're cost-effective and efficient.
• We also utilized on-chain data for benchmarking Okto's success rates, user retention, daily/weekly/monthly active wallets, transaction fee percentages, and more.

Challenges in Accessing Blockchain Data

With all these, accessing and analyzing blockchain data was not always a walk in the park. We faced multiple challenges along the way. You see, the data is scattered across different platforms, making it a bit of a puzzle to put together. We used tools like blockchain explorers, Defillama, Dune, Footprint, and more to study different aspects of the blockchain landscape. But even with all these tools, decoding and mapping the data wasn't a piece of cake. Different blockchains and protocols have their own unique ways of naming functions, which made things even trickier  for our analysts. And to top it off, none of the available tools could fully answer all the questions we had.

Integration Efforts

But hey, we didn't let these challenges slow us down. We did face integration challenges when combining data from different platforms. Hence, we have decided to focus on integrating blockchain data from various sources using their APIs. By restructuring the data and creating our own comprehensive databases and mappings, we aim to make the most of this valuable resource. We also upskilled our internal employees as well as leveraged external experts, to gather multiple statistics from on-chain data.

Stay tuned for more such updates as we continue to enhance the web2-to-web3 transition experience!

Written By

Ambalika Smiti

Assistant Vice President - Analytics, Okto