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Active Smart Contracts

The Active Contracts statistic shows the number of unique smart contracts that have been successfully invoked at least once in a state-changing (gas-consuming) transaction within a specified time window. This highlights real engagement with the network, rather than just counting deployed but idle contracts.

Hedera Data Access

To access this Hedera network statistic (and others) via Hgraph's GraphQL & REST APIs, get started here.

Hedera Stat Name: active_smart_contracts

Methodology​

Identify Smart Contract Accounts​

Active contracts are identified by querying the mirror node for successful executions (transaction_result = 22 (success)). Each successful contract call reflects a state change, consuming gas and modifying on-chain data.

Define the Activity Criteria​

A contract is considered "active" if it has executed at least one successful (state-changing) transaction within the specified time period.

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Transactions where transaction_result = 22 (success).
  • Transactions that consume gas, indicating the contract executed logic beyond just reading data.
  • Typical examples include CONTRACTCALL transactions that update contract state, mint tokens, transfer values, or perform other on-chain actions that alter the network's ledger.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Read-only calls that do not produce a transaction record.
  • Any data retrieval operations or RPC queries that do not modify state.
  • Failed transactions that do not lead to state changes (i.e., transaction_result != 22).

GraphQL API Examples​

Test out these queries using our developer playground.

Fetch current active contracts (hourly)​

query CurrentActiveContracts {
  ecosystem_metric(
    order_by: {end_date: desc_nulls_last}
    limit: 1
    where: {name: {_eq: "active_smart_contracts"}, period: {_eq: "hour"}}
  ) {
    total
    end_date
  }
}

Fetch weekly active accounts for 1 quarter (timeseries)​

query WeeklyActiveContracts {
  ecosystem_metric(
    order_by: {end_date: desc_nulls_last}
    limit: 12
    where: {name: {_eq: "active_smart_contracts"}, period: {_eq: "week"}}
  ) {
    total
    end_date
  }
}

Available Time Periods​

The period field supports the following values:

  • hour
  • day
  • week
  • month
  • quarter
  • year

If the query returns missing data, verify that contract execution transactions exist for the given period and check for potential API delays.

SQL Implementation​

Below is a link to the Hedera Stats GitHub repository. The repo contains the SQL function that calculates the Active Smart Contracts statistic outlined in this methodology.

SQL Function: ecosystem.dashboard_active_smart_contracts

View GitHub Repository →

Dependencies​

  • Hedera mirror node