Request Finance in Numbers: September 2022

Commentary for September 2022

We continued to ship new features in September. We’ve come a long way since MakerDAO asked us to build a crypto invoicing tool that eventually became Request Finance. To better serve teams paying, or getting paid in crypto, we introduced salaries, and more recently, an escrow smart contract. 

We spend a lot of time talking with our users to understand what new features we should build. There is no better way to build useful tools that meet the real needs of enterprise teams, and DAOs managing crypto payments. 

Our growth over the past month remains healthy, amidst the bear market. September saw positive, but slower growth compared to the previous month. This is not outside of the fluctuations in month-on-month (“MoM”) growth rates we have seen across previous quarters. 

Our team has been active on the crypto conference circuit. The most recent being Token2049 held in Singapore over the past week, which saw a record-breaking turnout of 7,000+ attendees, and 2,000+ global companies. We anticipate that many of the leads generated from the conference will convert to users in the coming months.

Request Finance remains well-positioned financially to continue building for the long run. We continue to remain cautiously optimistic in the face of stagflationary macroeconomic headwinds. Crypto asset prices, and by extension, the financial health of many Web3 teams are still highly correlated to asset prices, which remain depressed. 

But we believe that the growing weaknesses in traditional finance may well drive more users towards decentralized finance. In the face of spiking inflation from rising energy prices in Europe, more individuals may turn to owning stablecoins denominated in fiat currencies like USD, or deploying their funds towards higher-yield avenues such as DeFi lending pools.

While nascent, and still contending with teething issues on the road to maturity, we may see growing adoption of an increasingly credible alternative, internet-native financial system composed of crypto payment rails and DeFi platforms. We will continue to partner with other players in the stablecoins and real world assets ("RWA") space to push for more real world uses of crypto rails.

‍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.

New signups in September: 1,012

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 September, the number of users registered on Request Finance grew slightly less (-15%) month-on-month compared to August. The total number of registered accounts on Request Finance currently stands at 17,134 up 1,012 from the previous month. 

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New active users in September: 228

It is not sufficient to be content with having more new registered accounts, but actually users who are actively using the product on a regular basis to meet their crypto payment needs. 

The past month saw 228 new active users performing in-app activities like sending and paying invoices. This represents a 2% increase in total active users from the previous month, bringing the total number of active users to 2,364. 

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Number of crypto payments in September: 1,782

The number of crypto payments made in September saw a -4.35% decrease in the number of new payments made per month. The total number of crypto payments made on Request Finance stands at 16,840.

‍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 September: $17.8m  

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 $246 million of cryptocurrency payments have been made through the Request Finance app. 

Of which, around $17.8 million in crypto invoices were paid last month in September alone. This represents a +105% rise in the monthly value of invoices paid, or about $9 million more in new invoices than the previous month.

However, we are aware that this spike is due to one-off payments made by a single large user.

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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 widen its lead as the most preferred cryptocurrency being used on Request Finance, accounting for about 34% of all invoices paid on Request. 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 60% of the crypto payments on Request Finance. 

The Sandbox’s native token, SAND accounts for nearly a quarter, or about 23% of the total invoices paid in Request Finance, followed by USDT (14%) and DAI (9.5%), and ETH (3.7%). 

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.

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, Polygon, Celo, Fantom, and BNB Chain

The Ethereum network is clearly the preferred payment network, being used for about 87% of crypto payments processed through Request Finance.

However, Polygon is growing steadily due its lower gas fees, coming in second place, accounting for just over 6% of transactions made through Request Finance. 

Celo (4%) trails closely behind as the third most used chain for enterprise crypto payments.

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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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