Avalanche Transactions Mooned During USDC’s Temporary De-Peg in Q1 2023: Nansen

In Avalanche’s fourth-quarter report shared with CryptoPotato, data and analytics platform Nansen reported a heavily volatile daily transaction count on the Avalanche C-Chain.

The Avalanche C-Chain is essentially short for contract chain – which is the default smart contract blockchain on Avalanche. It allows the creation of any Ethereum-compatible smart contracts and runs complementary to the X-Chain, which is used to send and receive funds in the form of AVAX tokens.

Avalanche On-Chain Q1 2023

The number of transactions on the network kept oscillating between ~90k and 200k. However, a sharp spike over this range to 290k was seen on March 11, driven by Trader Joe, USDC, and two unlabelled addresses. It was found that the latter were two bots that recorded high activities suggesting multiple players took advantage of the market panic caused by USDC’s de-peg on that day.

There has been a significant increase in the number of unique addresses transacting on the network as well. Specifically, on March 10 and 11, the daily active addresses experienced a spike, recording over 120k on each day. The average gas paid, on the other hand, followed a similar pattern to the transactions, except for January 1, where it exceeded 40,000 despite no notable increase in the transaction count.

In the first quarter, the average daily gas paid on Avalanche C-Chain was significantly lower when compared with Ethereum. For context, the lowest daily gas paid on Ethereum stood at $2.43 on January 8. This is in stark contrast to the highest gas paid on Avalanche, which was $16 on March 11. Avalanche C-Chain users only shelled out between $0.07 to $0.32 for gas.

Nansen’s data suggested that despite the sudden spike in transactions on both chains on March 11, the average gas paid on Avalanche C-Chain is still 76 times lower than Ethereum.

Mega Septiandara, Research Analyst at Nansen, said:

“Even as the Web3 ecosystem rebounds from yet another event that undermined trust in the industry, Avalanche marked a successful start to the year with significant gains combined with multiple product releases and partnerships aimed at powering adoption and reinstating faith in the sector. With a strong focus on driving innovation, Avalanche is undoubtedly poised for marked growth as it enters the second quarter.”

AVAX Price Trajectory

In addition to substantial growth in overall transactions, and active addresses, Avalanche’s native token – AVAX- charted impressive gains.

After starting the year at $10.9, AVAX gained 60% in terms of YTD and was currently trading at $17.55.