How NFT transaction networks structure digital market participation: Ecosystem-level evidence from Ethereum and Polygon

Abstract

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) have emerged as a new organizational layer of digital exchange, raising questions about how participation, concentration, and community formation are structured within on-chain markets. Understanding whether these structures differ systematically across blockchain ecosystems with distinct asset orientations requires examining ecosystem-level interaction patterns. Most studies focus on specific collections or single platforms, offering limited insight into how connectivity, concentration, and community structure vary across markets with different NFT use cases. This study compares Ethereum and Polygon, two major NFT platforms with distinct dominant asset orientations (investment-oriented vs utility-oriented), to examine how their transaction networks differ at the ecosystem level. Using 3.9 million NFT transactions from May 2022 to May 2024, we apply network analysis to assess connectivity, centralization, community structure, and temporal dynamics. The findings show highly skewed interaction patterns in both ecosystems, with a small subset of addresses accounting for a disproportionate share of activity. Polygon networks exhibit higher modular segmentation and sharper upper-tail dominance, with communities aligning near-perfectly with application-specific boundaries, whereas Ethereum networks display comparatively more integrated, crosscollection interaction structure. These contrasts are interpreted as ecosystem-level structural patterns conditional on each chain's market composition and dominant NFT use cases, offering socio-technical insights into how participation concentrates and communities form across blockchain-based digital markets.