Nansen Indicates Top Gas Consumers of 2021

Thirteen of the top 20 Ethereum (ETH) gas consumers made it to the rankings for the first year in a row. Thus, seven protocols left the top league—and they seem to have something in common.

Uniswap, OpenSea, 1inch are top gas consumers in 2021

Mr. Svanevik has taken to Twitter to share the leaderbord of top gas consumers, i.e., the cryptocurrecy protocols on the Ethereum (ETH) network that consumed most of its resources in 2021.

2021 in review via top 20 Ethereum gas consumers ⛽️

Source: @nansen_ai

— Alex Svanevik (@ASvanevik) January 9, 2022

Uniswap (UNI), a flagship decentralized finance protocol of the Web3 space, is the top consumer of gas. This protocol allows users to exchange Ethereum-based tokens in a noncustodial manner.

Top-notch marketplace for non-fungible tokens (NFTs) OpenSea booked the second spot in the ranking. It is responsible for the lion’s share of trading volume on NFT markets.

1inch, a DeFi protocol with an optimized resource-efficient model of exchange (it even compensates gas costs to some users), is the third-largest consumer of Ethereum (ETH) gas.

Play-to-earn and NFTs in, Ponzis and DeFis out

Wrapped Ethereum (WETH), U.S. Dollar Tether (USDT ERC-20) and USD Coin (USDC), the three most popular assets in the crypto space, are also ranked in the aforementioned leaderboard.

Seven protocols have made their first appearance in the Top 20. Besides OpenSea, these are Metamask’s swap module, Axie Infinity play-to-earn ecosystem, Sorare tokenization platform, SCP, Bancor and Strongblock protocols.

At the same time, DeFis seem to be leaving the ranking: Kyber Network, Balancer Labs, Yearn Finance, Nest Protocol and Cream Finance are now out of the Top 20.

Also, the largest multi-blockchain Ponzi scheme, Forsage, left the rankings in 2021.