Exciting as the world of DeFi and smart contracts may be, its complexities can often prove to be obtrusive in the mass adoption of the decentralized web. Although, the growth of the ecosystem has resulted in the emergence of several protocols aimed to remove these barriers. Mainly by simplifying the process of accessing dApps and other decentralized services.
Among them is MetaMask, a non-custodial Ethereum wallet that also acts as a browser extension, allowing users to store Ether and other ERC-20 tokens and make transactions. Further, with the growth of DeFi and NFTs over the past year, MetaMask has increased in prominence as an entry point for novice users. So much so that its revenue over the past year has amounted to $200 million, according to a report by Delphi Digital.
Source: Delphi Digital
To get an idea of its enormous growth, MetaMask’s revenues can be compared to that of the top decentralized exchanges Sushiswap and Curve, which earned $70 million and $12 million year-to-date, respectively. If combined, this is less than half of MetaMask’s total revenue over the past 11 months.
Source: Delphi Digital
These enormous profits can be attributed to its native swapping feature, which the platform had launched in September last year. It provides users with the best on-chain execution prices by collecting quotes from multiple DEX aggregators. Albeit, charging 0.875% fees for each swap, which the report noted was “exorbitant by DeFi standards,” adding,
“The simple UX of swapping via the Metamask plug-in seems to trump the ludicrous fees the wallet charges for trades.”
Along with the high fee, MetaMask’s profits are protected by “virtually no cost to their revenue,” according to the report, which explained,
“Metamask’s customer acquisition cost (CAC) is a big, fat zero. Metamask has no token incentives or emissions, so there’s virtually no cost to their revenue. Their profit margins are close to 100%. Imagine if they had a token.”
Moreover, Ethereum co-founder and head of MetaMask’s parent company ConsenSys, Joseph Lubin, recently teased the idea of a MetaMask token on Twitter. While further plans are yet to be revealed, this triggered speculations of an airdrop and increased popularity.
Well, MetaMask has come out to be one of the main channels through which users interact with DeFi and Web3, with the platform recently reporting 21 million active monthly users.
