These are two distinct populations that overlap but should not be conflated.

Active users interact with your protocol or product. They may transact, use features, deploy capital, or engage with the platform without ever holding or using your token directly. On protocols where the token is not required for core functionality, active users and token participants can diverge significantly.

Active token participants engage with the token's demand drivers. They stake, lock, vote in governance, claim and restake rewards, provide liquidity, or use the token for protocol access. Their behavior directly influences circulating supply dynamics, mechanism health, and demand sustainability.

The distinction matters because active user growth without corresponding token participation means your product is gaining traction but your token is not capturing that value. This gap is one of the clearest signals that native utility is weak or that demand mechanisms are insufficiently integrated into the user experience.

The metric to watch is the conversion rate between the two: What percentage of your active users are also active token participants? A healthy and growing conversion rate indicates that the token is embedded in real user behavior. A low or declining rate suggests the token is peripheral to the product, which undermines long-term demand.