CEX and other crypto website traffic hasn't reached previous peak levels—has the retail investor surge not arrived yet?
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CEX and other crypto website traffic hasn't reached previous peak levels—has the retail investor surge not arrived yet?
The market has not currently experienced explosive growth in traffic.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAuthor: Tiger Research
Translation: TechFlow
Executive Summary
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Web traffic analysis in blockchain markets: Web traffic is an overlooked factor in blockchain market analysis. When observing the market through web traffic, current levels have not seen explosive growth compared to previous bull runs, raising questions about market vitality.
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Cryptocurrency prices and web traffic: Despite stable web traffic on both centralized exchanges and DeFi platforms, overall cryptocurrency prices have risen significantly. Unlike past retail-driven markets, this increase is likely fueled by inflows from external institutions such as ETFs.
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Discrepancy between DeFi analytics tools and DeFi web traffic: Although traffic to analytics tools like DEX screeners is steadily increasing, traditional DeFi services show relatively low web traffic. This suggests investors are being more selective when making actual trading or investment decisions, rather than frequently visiting analytics tools for market information.
Main Content
The recent surge in cryptocurrency prices has led many to believe the market has re-entered a bull cycle. However, rising cryptocurrency prices do not necessarily equate to increased market activity. To accurately assess market dynamics, many other factors must be considered.
These include common market metrics such as DAU and MAU, as well as blockchain-specific indicators like transaction volume, number of active wallets, and TVL. Many market analyses rely on these factors. For example, Solana's network TVL exceeding $4 billion—reaching its highest level in two years—is one such case.
"Web traffic" is rarely used as an analytical factor. Due to the nature of blockchain services, real user activity is considered more important; thus, web traffic—including visitors—is often used internally by projects but not commonly adopted as an analysis metric.
However, web traffic analysis can provide deeper market insights, as it reveals public interest in services along with detailed regional data. In this report, we use web traffic analysis to examine the state of the 2024 blockchain market, offering a unique perspective by sector and helping you understand the market from a real-world standpoint.
1. CEX
With the recent surge in cryptocurrency prices, crypto exchanges have naturally drawn the most attention. By analyzing web traffic at major exchanges like Binance, we can see that the current market enthusiasm is less intense than in previous cycles.
Comparing Bitcoin price and trading volume with each exchange’s web traffic further highlights differences from past bull markets. Bitcoin’s price has surged significantly, while trading volume and exchange web traffic remain low—suggesting that price increases may be driven by off-exchange transactions, such as those involving ETFs.
If this trend continues, we believe retail investors will play a smaller role in this cycle compared to previous ones, while ETFs and other traditional financial instruments may take on greater significance.
2.Crypto Ranking Websites
CoinMarketCap dominates the web traffic rankings among cryptocurrency ranking portals, followed by CoinGecko. The gap in web activity between CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko is substantial.
The web traffic of all major crypto ranking websites remains stable rather than growing—another contrast to previous market booms.
3. DeFi
When examining web traffic for major DeFi projects, PancakeSwap leads, followed by Uniswap, Raydium, and others. PancakeSwap’s high traffic is likely due to various features beyond core functionality—such as gaming and NFTs—that attract users, a characteristic rarely found on other DeFi platforms.
In the increasingly popular Solana DeFi ecosystem, Raydium takes the lead, followed by Jup and Orca. After FTX's collapse, we observe a dip in volume followed by a rebound, consistent with actual trading trends.
4. DeFi Screening Tools
With numerous tokens launching daily, having a tool that allows quick viewing and analysis is crucial. Currently, DEX Screener dominates in web traffic, while DexGuru has been on a downward trend since peaking in early 2022.
When comparing average web traffic of DeFi screening tools with that of major DeFi projects, the difference stems from usage patterns. Typical DeFi investors use analytics tools to monitor their crypto assets and visit them frequently. General DeFi platforms lack additional features, so traffic may only spike during investment decisions. Moreover, some DeFi analytics tools also support trading functions like swaps, giving users even more reasons to stay engaged.
Conclusion
In this article, we examined the blockchain market using web traffic—an often-overlooked metric among the many used in market analysis. The most striking finding is that, unlike in the past, the current market is not experiencing an explosive growth in traffic. Even accounting for service evolution and the fact that many platforms now exist primarily as apps, traffic volumes remain low. Based solely on this indicator, it is difficult to conclude that the cryptocurrency market has reached a boom phase.
We hope this analysis helps market participants gain a more comprehensive understanding of the blockchain market through the lens of web traffic activity.
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