🥧 growthepie: Metrics and usage data for Ethereum scaling solutions and their projects

Public Good Projects Discussion
1

Describe your project and why you classify it as a Public Good

We are a public goods data platform designed specifically for Ethereum scaling solutions to analyze fundamentals as well as more detailed blockspace usage with a curated set of categories. Our goal is to empower developers and users alike by providing them with a comprehensive overview of fundamental metrics, onchain data, and educational resources, to help them make informed decisions when selecting their chain to build and interact on. We believe that real-world impact can only be achieved when people can select and use projects that fulfill their actual needs and when they know what’s out there. We achieve this through better transparency and overview of what’s happening in the Ethereum ecosystem.

The platform is and will stay free to use forever. We do not have any VC funding or angel investment, nor do we have any subscription fee to access more data by individual users. All data can be seen and used (also via our API) free of charge. We are also completely open-source.

What are your main project funding sources?

Grants funding, User donations

How much have you raised from each of your funding sources and from who?

  • Ethereum Foundation Layer 2 Community Grants: USD ~79k
  • Ethereum Foundation Data Collection Grant 1: USD 30k (not fully paid yet)
  • Ethereum Foundation Data Collection Grant 2 (for Open Labels Initiative): USD 100k (not fully paid yet)
  • Optimism Builders grant: 35k OP (locked until August 2024)
  • Gitcoin GG18/GG19: USD ~2500
  • Gitcoin Arbitrum Funding Fest: ~800 ARB
  • Optimism RPGF3: ~76400 OP (currently streaming)

Are you seeking

Funding for general purposes

Has your project launched or planning to launch a token?

No

Share your project roadmap

See more details below

What milestones have you achieved?

All the following we have built from zero in less than one year. We received the first tranche of the Ethereum Foundation grant in February 2023, and launched the first version of our platform end of May 2023. The following has been achieved since then:

Fundamental Metrics Chain Comparisons

Currently, we provide a curated and easy-to-understand set of metrics for Layer 2s, focusing on 18 chains: Arbitrum One, Base, Blast, OP Mainnet, Immutable X, Linea, Loopring, Manta Pacific, Mantle, Metis, Polygon zkEVM, rhino.fi, Scroll, Starknet, Taiko, zkSync Era and ZORA. All data has been pulled via RPC, some has been received from data providers or is linked to other sources. However, we are changing more and more to connecting our own RPC for better data quality and reliability.

We have 4 main categories that allow you to analyze the following fundamental metrics:

Activity

  • Daily Active Addresses: The number of unique daily addresses that interacted with a chain.

  • Transaction Count: The number of daily transactions. We try to only count transactions that are executed by users/smart contracts, excluding system transactions.

  • Throughput: The number of daily transactions. We try to only count transactions that are executed by users/smart contracts - no system transactions.

Value Locked

  • Stablecoin Market Cap: The sum of stablecoins that are locked on the chain.

  • Total Value Locked: The sum of all funds locked on the chain.

Economics

  • Fees Paid by Users: The sum of fees that were paid by users of the chain in gas fees or, in the case of chains like Immutable X, the amount of fees that were paid to the protocol wallet.

  • Rent Paid to L1: The gas fees paid by L2s to post transaction data & verification states onto Ethereum.

  • Onchain Profit: The net profit of L2s, accounting for revenues as L2 gas fees collected and expenses as posting transaction data & verification states onto Ethereum.

  • Fully Diluted Valuation: The theoretical market cap of a token if all its planned tokens (total supply) were issued at the current price.

  • Market Cap: The total value of all circulating tokens, calculated by multiplying the current price of a single token by the total number of tokens in circulation.

Convenience

  • Transaction Costs: The median amount that is paid per transaction.

Blockspace Explorer

With one rollup launching after the other, it is hard for users to understand what’s going on in the Ethereum ecosystem. Helping to analyze blockspace changes this trajectory.

Our platform offers the following to Ethereum’s ecosystem:

  • An overview of chains’ high-level blockspace usage. All expressed in shares of a chain’s total blockspace. In simple words: For which purpose are these Layers 2s built and what do people do with them?

  • A comparison for available Layer 2s for their usage in specific categories, ranging from NFT, Token Transfers to Socials applications. For each of these and more categories, we have a set of subcategories that allow you to filter in more detail and compare which category is more used on which chain.

  • For each category/subcategory, users can see the most-used smart contracts ranked in a table and make sense of how the chain is being used

Open Labels Initiative (OLI)

In order to ensure that people can make sense of all these Ethereum scaling solutions, we need to label smart contracts, i.e. projects that launch on the respective Layer 2s or Layer 3s. Currently, we label smart contracts ourselves. This is a huge effort, as every smart contract that is deployed needs to be researched, labeled, and verified. For this reason, we are building the Open Labels Initiative as one of the founding members, together with other contributors. This initiative aims to tackle the issue of isolated and non-standardized contract and wallet labeling datasets within the blockchain data community. By introducing a standardized data model for smart contract and wallet labels we advocate for the consolidation into a single, universally accessible data structure utilized by various data providers. Additionally, we also aim to function as an aggregator for labeling tools (i.e. automated ERC detection, activity tagging, etc.)

Smart Contract Label Suggestions

As a user of our platform, you can already participate! Suggest smart contract labels and become an essential part of the pie. We will work on this feature to enable more community-based and open-source smart contract labeling.

Single Chain Metrics All-in-One

You can compare chains amongst each other with all the metrics mentioned. Additionally, you have chain-specific pages that allow you to have a glance at all metrics for a chain at once.

Retroactive Public Goods Fund Tracker

In addition to aggregating data and providing fundamental metrics, we tracked projects and their impact for Optimism’s RPGF round 3. This was the start of tracking impact for projects and providing transparency and overview of their achievements and previous funding.

Tell us more about milestones you’d like to achieve

  • Application-specific analytics: We want to go one level deeper and enable users to analyze individual projects (labeled smart contracts) in much more detail, for example their traction on different Layer 2s, fees of using them on either, etc.

  • More detailed transaction fees page: We are building on our most popular metric, and enhancing the data and transparency for our users by providing more detailed fees for transacting on the listed Layer 2s

  • More convenient analytics and sharing features: We continue to improve the UX to enable better analytics of metrics and chains, comparisons and also sharing of charts and tables for your own usage

  • Enhancing data with knowledge snippets: Tied with our metrics, we provide content for both developers and consumers to understand data and their specific use cases more. Also, what each of the events readable from data means for a specific Layer 2 and what this means compared to other L2 chains. Additional educational content for each metric brings data-based decision-making closer to each end-user/developer/investor.

  • Development of more impact trackers: We are working on enhancing our RPGF3 Tracker, and enable the same and better information overview for other impact projects. This development is in the early stages but fits our goal to provide better metrics and usability around data, as a public goods funded project.

  • Cross-reference applications/projects with their impact and funding: Since we are a public good and have lots of valuable data on projects (see goal above in this list), we aim to provide more visualizations and trackers on projects and their impact on users and the ecosystem in general. This can include OP RPGF, Gitcoin, Octant and other platforms providing data for us to visualize

  • Addition of more current and upcoming chains in the Ethereum ecosystem, more specifically Metis, Manta, Blast and Mode

  • Changing and maintaining infrastructure, adapting our Blockspace Explorer to OLI’s data standard once the first version is defined

Funding Goal and Budget

USD 65k, mostly to be spent on team (for design, development, and maintenance), infrastructure, and marketing/BD efforts.

Tell us more about your team

  • Matthias: Started to work in the blockchain/EVM space 6 years ago with his master thesis on the “Implementation of blockchain-based local energy markets”. He worked on grants for projects like Uniswap, starting growthepie.xyz as an Ethereum Foundation grant, and now also working for a crypto fund - supporting on the data due dilligence side of things.

  • Manish: With a solid background in software engineering, Manish has hands-on experience in developing user-friendly applications and working with blockchain technologies, as evidenced by his work on DogeAPI, a cryptocurrency payment platform.

  • Tobias: Background in product design as well as education & training for innovation and Design Thinking, for example designing and delivering educational courses for founders for Tech Open Air Berlin.

  • Mike: Recent graduate and very skilled full-stack developer, currently mostly working on frontend related tasks.

  • Lorenz: Student at RWTH Aachen University and founder of the Aachen Blockchain Club. His extensive knowledge about blockchain technology is of great value and he supports us with research and data related tasks.

  • Nader: Student at TUM Munich and another very skilled full-stack dev. Currently, mostly supporting on backend topics like data aggregation and database management. He’s worked on several crypto projects before growthepie.xyz and is very skilled in extracting information from bytecode.

  • Ahoura: Another FH Aachen student and member of the blockchain club there. He was previously active in the Cosmos ecosystem but he’s learning more and more about Ethereum’s scaling solutions. He supports mainly with regards to social media and content creation.

More about the team on our Contributors - growthepie.

Social Credibility (development progress, awards, notable GitHub commits, referrals)

Our platform: https://growthepie.xyz

Twitter/X: x.com

Farcaster: Warpcast

Lens: https://share.lens.xyz/u/growthepie.lens

Discord: Discord

OLI Github: GitHub - openlabelsinitiative/OLI: A standardized framework and data model for EVM address labeling.

Why’s your project important?

The goal and purpose of growthepie is to provide understanding and transparency to a permissionless environment, so that important information and developments do not get lost. This includes important new Ethereum scaling solutions (protocols), projects launching that fulfill needs of real users and to track project’s impact on the real world. We pull lots of data and can visualize it for data experts, but also for people not familiar with reading and understanding data on a daily basis.

What’s your project’s Twitter handle?

@growthepie_eth

GitHub Link

Project Discord Link

Project Website

https://growthepie.xyz

Team Social Accounts

Discord Contact

@tobsch

Telegram Contact

@tobschcom

Wallet Address

0x9438b8B447179740cD97869997a2FCc9b4AA63a2

What can the Octant team help you with?

Collaboration in the public goods community, also keeping us in the loop for more need for transparent data/tracking/analysis

How do you define impact for your project? What metrics are you tracking?

Since we are not onchain, we define impact through either active users, mentions in posts, podcast, or media in general and followers. We have attached examples of The Daily Gwei and Bankless below. ethereum.org also mentions us as a go-to resource for Layer 2s.

Share your project impact metrics and results

We currently have more than >320 active users daily.

We organically grew our follower base from 0 to >2900 followers on Twitter since May 2023.

Links

https://twitter.com/growthepie_eth

4 Likes
2

With this post I am submitting an update on growthepie’s work since the last epoch.

We received additional funding:

  • Gitcoin GG20: ~ $3,600 from donations and matching pool
  • Giveth: ~ $250
  • New OP Builders Grants secured: 50,000 OP and 20,000 OP locked until end of 2025
  • Octant Epoch 3: ~ 52 ETH

What have we achieved since the last Epoch?

  • We released a new dedicated Layer 2 fees page: fees.growthepie.xyz
  • We launched a first version of an Octant funding tracker
  • Listing of new chains with all available metrics platform-wide: Blast, Mode and Manta Pacific
  • Added new developer content in our Knowledge Hub on EIP-4844 and other changes
  • Launched a new metric on the platform: Throughput
  • Redesigned our Single Chain Analytics page for better overview and more insights on each Layer 2, also integrated L2Beat link
  • Integrated with the Open Source Observer for our smart contract labelling efforts at the Open Labels Initiative, worked on data to filter out project duplicates
  • In total we have labeled 116k contracts with some label (i.e. project or name) and 30k contracts that we have assigned to a usage category (blockspace category). Changed backend to support the new OLI standard for more consistent smart contract labeling in an open-source way and for better industry wide sharing (including new beta APIs up and running) - https://openlabelsinitiative.org
  • Many more mentions on Cointelegraph, Decrypt, BTCEcho, X and other platforms. The Block is using our data for some of their metrics on theblock.co, for example https://www.theblock.co/data/scaling-solutions/optimistic-rollups
  • Vitalik used us in one of his latest blog posts Multidimensional gas pricing and mentioned us on Dappcon24 in Berlin :partying_face:

What have we planned and how do we use the funding?

  • We are upgrading the platform throughout, and making data visualisations more accessible
  • We plan to launch a new labels.growthepie.xyz to give people a better overview of (un)labeled smart contracts for all chains we support in our Blockspace section
  • Continue labelling smart contracts
  • Working on new metrics to launch on the platform
  • Integrating more chains for more complete usage data
  • Add Application-level analytics
  • Add Economics section to platform
  • More content on scaling solutions
3

With this post I am submitting an update on growthepie’s work since the last epoch.

We received additional funding:

  • Octant Community Grant: 4.5 ETH to be paid out over the course of the next couple of months based on milestones
  • Octant Epoch 4: ~1.14 ETH

What have we achieved since the last Epoch?

  • We concluded our first round of the Pie Analyzoor challenge, engaging the community in more data analytics and being able to post this publicly on our Farcaster channel: x.com
  • Created a dedicated Glo Dollar Tracker: x.com
  • Listed another Layer 2 chain, Metis: x.com
  • Upgraded our fees page with new metrics and worked on UX changes: x.com
  • Listed another Layer 2 chain, Taiko: x.com
  • Updated the Octant Tracker for Epoch 4: x.com
  • BIG RELEASE, the labels page together with Open Labels Initiative (https://labels.growthepie.xyz): x.com
  • Listed another Layer 2 chain, Redstone: x.com

We also have a new team member: ETH Wave :partying_face:

What have we planned and how do we use the funding?

  • Continue labelling smart contracts
  • Integrating more chains for more complete usage data
  • Add Application-level analytics
  • Add Economics section to platform
  • More content on scaling solutions
  • Upgrading the platform to accommodate many more chains - include new ways to browse, search, filter and navigate the overall platform
  • Smaller UI/UX improvements for a better user feel
  • We are also designing and implementing a new version of the Octant tracker, with more focus on both community and projects

Please also find our project on KarmaGAP here: https://gap.karmahq.xyz/project/growthepiexyz-layer-2-and-blockspace-analytics

We are trying to keep this project page updated as good as we can. There are some automatic duplicates on KarmaGAP which we currently cannot access due to multi-sig issues. Hence please only refer to the link mentioned above.

4

Hey @tobsch did you join the call last Friday? Here’s a TLDR in case you missed it:

Check the long term project template for your project specifically:

1 Like
5

Hi @james,

thanks for sharing this. No I had not found this information even though I was looking through the Discord. But there’s a lot of information everywhere in multiple places. I will have a look with what you just shared.

Cheers

1 Like
6

No worries, you must have missed it, I tagged you in the discord with where the information was shared… Good feedback that we can be more proactive in these comms in the future.

1 Like
7

Hi all,

here’s our long-term reporting to be able to participate in the next Octant Epoch:

  • Total Funds Received from Octant so far: 53.3615 ETH
  • Funds Spent: ~ 21.5 ETH of Octant funding (plus spending of other funding we had received previously, like RPGF or small Gitcoin round funding)
  • Detailed Utilization: The funds are mainly spent on our 8-person team, infrastructure (for data storage, processing, aggregation, etc., amongst them AWS, Vercel) and tools to work together. Also operational cost for the company, i.e. accounting and tax. Some has also been spent on marketing initiatives, although we try to keep cost for merch, conferences, etc. at a minimum (for example, not using expensive hotels, unnecessary amount of merchandize produced, etc.).

Milestones and Deliverables

  • Milestone 1:

    • Description: We concluded our first round of the Pie Analyzoor challenge, engaging the community in more data analytics and being able to post this publicly on our Farcaster channel: x.com
    • Immediate Outcome: Engagement of the community to learn more data and Ethereum analytics and try it out themselves

  • Milestone 2:

    • Description: Created a dedicated Glo Dollar Tracker: x.com
    • Immediate Outcome: Public goods stablecoin overview to spread the word about Glo Dollar and increase usage

  • Milestone 3:

    • Listed another Layer 2 chain, Metis
    • Immediate Outcome: More complete picture for people to understand the L2 space, new ecosystem started using growthepie: x.com

  • Milestone 4:

    • Upgraded our fees page with new metrics and worked on UX changes
    • Immediate Outcome: Addressed feedback from users and made the page easier to navigate: x.com

  • Milestone 5:

    • Listed another Layer 2 chain, Taiko
    • Immediate Outcome: More complete picture for people to understand the L2 space, new ecosystem started using growthepie: x.com

  • Milestone 6:

    • Updated the Octant Tracker for Epoch 4
    • Immediate Outcome: Octant projects get a more complete direct overview of their funding during the allocation window: x.com

  • Milestone 7:

    • BIG RELEASE, the labels page together with Open Labels Initiative
    • Immediate Outcome: Making contract data more accessible to our users, giving them a complete overview of contracts and what projects/purpose is behind the address: x.com

  • Milestone 8:

    • Listed another Layer 2 chain, Redstone
    • Immediate Outcome: More complete picture for people to understand the L2 space, new ecosystem started using growthepie: x.com

  • Milestone 9:

    • Grow the team - hiring Eth Wave
    • Immediate Outcome: More hands to work on growing the platform, making data more understandable and accessible: x.com

  • Karma GAP: https://gap.karmahq.xyz/project/growthepiexyz-layer-2-and-blockspace-analytics

Challenges

  • Previous Challenges:
    • Description: Differentiating ourselves from other data platforms and deciding which chains to list.
    • Updates: We are building more on our vision, and keep following our alignment with Ethereum values, hence covering only Ethereum-based scaling solutions.
    • Resolution: This is an ongoing process, however, we have decided not to participate in the quantity game, rather quality game. We already cover >95% of traction on Ethereum scaling solutions, and by focusing on delivering quality data for these, we achieve a better outcome for our users.
    • Lessons Learned: Focus, frequently ask for feedback and readjust if pressure from outside seems to be there but might not fit with the product vision that has been confirmed by user’s feedback.

Outputs and Outcomes

Outputs (Last Epoch):

  • Output 1: Mentions in the media and by important people in the industry
  • Output 2: Increased follower base to ~5300 followers on X, Increased follower base to ~830 followers on Farcaster

Short-term Outcomes:

  • Outcome 1: We have been mentioned by Vitalik in a blog post, at dappcon and also at EthCC. Plus others from the OP space, for example. Also The Block, Cointelegraph, Blockworks and others use our data in their articles to deliver news and explanations around Layer 2s to their users. Layer 2 teams use our data to report about their ecosystem backed up by data.
  • Outcome 2: By increasing our follower base we can deliver our data analysis and also onboard new users to data analytics and especially the Ethereum ecosystem, as the Layer 2 space is more accessible especially because of cheaper transactions.

Long-term Outcomes:

  • Outcome 1: Delivering more data analytics and higher quality education around it in the Layer 2 space, especially making data-driven decision accessible to builders. We also have a chance to bridge the gap of why, what and where to build something, backed up by data, and also showing the funding possibilities out there, especially in the public goods space.

  • Outcome 2: Bringing data in the hands of more people and not let them be scared by it.

    Metrics for Outcomes:

    1. User Engagement: We currently roughly see 800-1000 users each day on our platform
    2. Adoption and Usage: We frequently see our charts used on social media to report on the Ethereum scaling solution space
    3. Community Impact: Since march, we almost doubled our followers on X from 2900 in March to ~5300 in August plus Farcaster with currently ~830 followers
    4. Financial Metrics: -
    5. User Satisfaction: We frequently get the feedback that growthepie is a data platform that’s easy to use, has good visualizations and a rounded feature set
    6. Innovation and Development: We launched a dedicated labels page, listed new chains, and working on a more automated process onboard chains and still fit to our UI.

Plans for Potential Funds Raised in the Next Octant Allocation Window

  • Goal 1:
    • Description: We are navigating the positioning of growthepie to be as useful especially to end users and builders
    • Expected Outcome: We are working on better data visualizations a accessibility of pages, especially to bring more understanding of where to build and why there are so many Layer 2s.
  • Goal 2:
    • Description: Listing of more chains
    • Expected Outcome: Staying up-to-date with new chains launching
    • Funding needed: ~$10k/chain per year for fundamental metrics plus additional per chain cost for smart contract labelling, educational content, etc.

Other Funding

  • Grant Funding Received Since the Last Epoch: No other substantial funding received
  • Other Non-Grant Funding Sources: No other sources of funding

Future Plans for Financial Sustainability

It’s now been 4+ months from your initial application. Have there been any changes to revenue sources and income generation plans. Share your story on how your project plans to achieve long-term financial sustainability and the progress since the previous epoch. You may include updates on any of the following aspects:

  • We streamlined our process of onboarding new chains
  • We hired new people and are working on better processes to be more efficient, faster in launching new chains and features, as well as a more robust setup
3 Likes