Request Finance in Numbers: December 2022

Commentary for December 2022

Overview. Despite a tumultuous year behind us, we continued to grow steadily throughout 2022. In that period, the total payments volume processed through Request Finance grew 54.2%, or about $96.1 million. These numbers tell us two things. One, that using crypto for enterprise payments like payroll, and invoices is a real and growing use case. Two, that our app is helping to make crypto payments easy for remote-first, globally-distributed teams.

‍At the business level, December saw the value of crypto payments continue to grow, despite a downward correction in the number of payments made. As explained in the previous month’s report, this owes to a spike in November from a single user making a large number of small payouts in $ANKR.

Crypto-native companies that make payments, or get paid in crypto remain our ideal customers. We are also actively looking to partner with new chains, and stablecoin issuers to power invoice, payroll, and expense payments in their ecosystems. 

‍At the product level. As we continue to scale in 2023, we want to further that mission in two ways. Firstly, we want to make self-onboarding easier. Request Finance is used by everyone from freelancers to large teams. Not everyone needs, or wants to have to speak to a member of our team to learn how to use all the features in the app. Our product team is working to make it easier for you to navigate and learn about the app on your own.

Secondly, our team is working on new features to make the app better for enterprise teams. Some features include the ability to add admins, and other team members to match the approval workflows, and other financial controls and processes. Following the string of collapsed centralized finance players like Celsius and FTX, accusations of waste and abuse at DAOs, the need to maintain accountability and oversight over teams’ crypto treasuries has never been more apparent.

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New Crypto Payment Options

The number of cryptocurrencies supported on Request Finance is second to none, and continues to grow each month. Freelancers, DAOs, and crypto project teams can now send and receive payments in 150+ cryptocurrencies and stablecoins, 9+ fiat currencies, and 14+ blockchains. 

If you’d like to see a token or chain supported in Request Finance, reach out to us on Twitter! 

Request Finance is a chain-agnostic B2B crypto payments platform. We can support invoicing, salary payments, and more in the preferred tokens of any new Layer 1 or Layer 2 ecosystem. 

Our extensive support for new payment options enables projects across different chains to transact seamlessly with each other in their preferred token.

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New signups in December: 1,293

One important metric is the growth in the number of new accounts created, or “signups”. They represent new companies and freelancers ready to use Request Finance to pay, and get paid in cryptocurrency.

In December, the number of users registered on Request Finance grew slightly less month-on-month. The total number of registered accounts on Request Finance currently stands at 20,333 up 1,293, or about +37.3% from the previous month. 

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New active users in December: 55

Having more new registered accounts is one thing, but more important is to have users who are actively using the product on a regular basis to meet their crypto payment needs. 

‍Note: We adopted a more conservative method of measuring active users in November 2022. Previously, an active user was an account that had made a crypto payment within the past 4 months. Now, to be considered an active user, an account must have made a crypto payment on Request Finance in the last 35 days. 

The past month saw 55 new active users performing in-app activities like sending and paying invoices. This represents a slight increase of +3.38% in total active users from the previous month, bringing the total number of active users to 1,682. 

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Number of crypto payments in December: 2,286

The number of crypto payments made in December saw a -66.6% drop in the number of new payments made per month. As explained in the previous month’s report, this owes to a spike in November from a single user making a large number of small payouts in $ANKR.

The total number of crypto payments made on Request Finance stands at 27,709.

Note: Depending on contractual payment terms, it can take more than 20-30 days for payment requests like invoices to be paid from when they are issued, sometimes longer. That means that some invoices issued last month are still pending for payments likely to occur this month.‍

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Value of crypto payments in December: $10.3m  

A key success indicator at Request Finance is the dollar value of crypto payments made through the app. Since January 2021, a total of over $273 million of cryptocurrency payments have been made through the Request Finance app. 

Of which, around $10.3 million in crypto invoices were paid last month in December alone. This represents a +16.5% rise in the monthly value of invoices paid, or about $1.5 million more in new crypto payments than the previous month.

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Top cryptocurrencies: USDC, SAND, USDT, DAI, OCEAN

Another data point to keep track of is which cryptocurrencies are most often used on Request Finance. 

USDC continues to be the most preferred cryptocurrency being used on Request Finance, accounting for about 30% of all crypto payments made by our mostly enterprise users. The popularity of invoices being paid in USDC on the Request Finance app likely reflects a flight to safety in the stablecoin market in the wake of UST’s collapse.

USD-denominated stablecoins as a whole continue to be a popular choice for enterprise crypto payments, making up three-fifths, or 61.3% of the crypto payments on Request Finance. The popularity of stablecoins can be explained with many of the same reasons why most people do business in fiat, rather than settling payments in shares of tech companies listed on the NASDAQ. Their stable prices make them ideal as a medium of exchange, and unit of account - two of the three defining features of money.

The Sandbox’s native token, SAND comes in second, accounting for about 19% of the total invoices paid in Request Finance, followed by USDT (14%) and DAI (9.5%), and ETH (3.7%). 

ANKR claimed a close third (18%) in the list of top crypto payment options in Request Finance. ANKR is the native token of the decentralized Web3 infrastructure provider that helps developers, decentralized applications, and stakers interact easily with an array of blockchains. 

GRT, OCEAN, AAVE, and RARE also made it to the list of top 10 payment currencies. You can find the full list of currencies supported in the Request Finance app here.

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Top payment networks: Ethereum, BNB Chain, Polygon, Celo, and Fantom

The Ethereum network is clearly the preferred payment network, being used for about 70% of crypto payments processed through Request Finance. 

BNB rapidly took the lead, claiming second place, with about one-fifth, or 20% of the crypto payments volume in December. BNB Chain is the fastest growing payment network on Request Finance.

Polygon continues to grow steadily due its lower gas fees, coming in third, accounting for about 6% of transactions made through Request Finance. 

Through this monthly report, we hope to provide an overview of what’s happening with Request Finance, and the data driving our product development decisions. We hope that our commitment to transparency will inspire new users to take their first steps into invoicing and payments with cryptocurrency for their business.

Want to see what's going on with Request on a daily basis? Visit the Request Activity Dashboard for more exhaustive data on the Request Network.  

Any specific metric you'd like to see covered in the following report? Feel free to get in touch through email or by joining the Discord channel! 

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