Preface

In the past, DeFi users had relatively simple product requirements, and most users’ assets were primarily on the Ethereum mainnet. Wallets such as MetaMask and imToken could meet users’ asset management needs. With the rise of the DeFi trend, products have been continuously iterated and updated. On one hand, many users’ needs have expanded beyond finding the best trade depth or optimal staking yield, to include complex operations such as savings, loans, contracts, and liquidity mining. This has resulted in users’ assets being spread across multiple DApps, making it difficult for users to intuitively understand the distribution of their assets. On the other hand, Layer-2 solutions have gradually begun to be implemented, with many users’ assets moving to L2 networks such as Polygon, and the rise of exchange public chains like BSC. DeFi users’ assets, which were originally concentrated on Ethereum, have started to be distributed across multiple blockchains, making the process of managing user assets more complex. Therefore, to provide users with a better DeFi experience, projects in the DeFi asset information aggregator space have emerged.

Zapper is one of these DeFi asset information aggregators, focusing on assisting users in asset management. It provides visual asset tracking and management functionality, and expands into areas such as lending and investment to provide a one-stop service. Instead of accessing multiple trading platforms and executing a series of transactions, users can perform all operations on a single interface, saving time comparing yields between different DApps. This article will detail the series of functions currently provided by the Zapper platform.

Overview of Zapper

Zapper was founded in May 2020 and is a DeFi asset management service platform that originated from integrating DeFi Zap and DeFi Snap. DeFi Zap focuses on interacting with multiple smart contracts, while DeFi Snap allows users to track their positions. The combination of these two products forms the foundation of Zapper, which provides users with the ability to track all DeFi activities, as well as features such as aggregated trading, monitoring and managing all DeFi assets and liabilities, and NFT queries and investments.

The project has gone through seed rounds and Series A funding, with a disclosed financing amount of $16.55 million, and has received support from many well-known institutions and angel investors such as Coinbase.

The project has not yet issued tokens and does not have ongoing protocol fee revenue. The team is focused on attracting users and increasing user stickiness. In April of this year, the official Twitter account tweeted that they “have no plans to launch a token,” and it is unknown whether there will be a specific value capture model in the future.

Product Features

Basic Function - Asset Tracking

Users only need to connect their wallets, such as MetaMask, to the Zapper platform to track their wallet’s asset situation. They can easily browse all transaction activities in their wallet and track the assets and liabilities of others’ DeFi through direct address input. As shown in the figure below, the asset overview page is clear, and the distribution of various assets is clear at a glance, making it suitable for users to track and manage their assets.

Image Source: https://zapper.xyz/dashboard

Additional Features

In addition to the basic asset tracking function, the Zapper platform provides extended functionality through integration with multiple DeFi protocols, such as asset trading, NFT minting and sales, and bridging asset transfers.

One recently updated key feature is on-chain information tracking. The platform supports seven chains, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Polygon. Users can easily view recent on-chain project updates, as well as large asset transaction information and prices, by selecting the corresponding network.

Image Source：https://zapper.xyz/?trendingCategory=All

Zapper provides a decentralized trading aggregator to find the lowest quotes among different exchanges. However, Zapper.fi itself is not a DEX aggregator. It is completely different from aggregator platforms like 1inch. It serves as an aggregation layer between users and platforms. The platform supports seven chains, including Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Polygon. Users can view asset trading activities on different chains through the Zapper platform by selecting the corresponding target asset. Zapper’s transactions do not incur protocol fees, and users only need to pay the trading platform fees for the quotes.

Image Source：https://zapper.xyz/exchange

Zapper integrates NFT projects on Ethereum, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Base. Users can search for any NFT asset on the Zapper platform. The platform discloses information such as trading volume, price fluctuations, floor price, and market holdings for various NFT projects. Users can click on individual NFT projects to view detailed information about the project.

Image Source：https://zapper.xyz/nft/ethereum

Zapper covers almost all DeFi protocols. Users can query the TVL value of DeFi protocols through the Zapper platform. By clicking on the corresponding protocol, users can view the transaction activity history of the project’s products and the distribution of their wallet assets on the platform.

Image Source：https://zapper.xyz/apps

In addition, Zapper launched a DAO observation tool in July last year, which displays the total value of different DAO treasuries and provides analysis of collective holders.

Current Status

Overall, since Zapper was launched in May 2021 through a merger, the number of users has steadily increased. This was especially true during the peak of the liquidity mining craze in August 2021. However, as the mining frenzy subsided and bearish market conditions arrived, user growth stagnated, and the platform’s user base is currently relatively stable.

Image Source：https://dune.com/Nodar/zapper-stats

Zapper has held two seasons of NFT minting events. Due to high user airdrop expectations in the market, the activity has attracted many users and accumulated a certain amount of user traffic. However, in essence, the task reward activity has not increased the user’s transfer cost, and user stickiness is not high.

In addition to Zapper, there are other projects in the DeFi asset information aggregator track, such as Zerion and DeBank. All three are continuously integrating protocols and improving functionalities. Zerion and Zapper.fi are similar in many ways, with similar basic functionalities. However, Zapper’s on-chain tracking and tagging further optimize the data. DeBank has developed the Rabby wallet and expanded its business horizontally. They have also launched social products like Hi Stream and their own Layer2 product. The competitive landscape of this track has not yet been determined. As the functionalities of various platforms gradually become more complete, the differences between projects may lie in the more detailed UI experience.

Conclusion

As an all-in-one DeFi asset management platform, Zapper provides the most basic function of asset tracking. Users can connect their wallets to the platform to monitor their assets and liabilities in the DeFi field in real time. The interface is intuitive and simple, allowing users to easily see their asset allocation. The protocol continuously integrates major DeFi protocols and currently supports multiple chains, encompassing most DeFi protocols. It provides users with aggregator trading, NFT asset queries, DApp total locked volume queries, and other functions. The project has not yet released tokens, and there are expectations of airdrops in the market. The team has expressed that they will continue to optimize and expand the platform’s features in the future.