DappRadar’s Q2 Report Shows NFTs and GameFi Are the Future of dApps

DappRadar, the world’s dapp store that brings high-quality, accurate insights on decentralized applications, has published its Q2 Dapp Industry Report, which shows how NFTs and GameFi are a silver lining for the future of dapps amid the doom and gloom of emerging crypto winter. 

The report highlights how the dapp industry has felt the brunt of widespread turmoil in the cryptocurrency market. Notably, it reveals the number of daily Unique Active Wallets (UAW) interacting with blockchain dapps fell to just 1.78 million on average in July. That’s the first time dapp UAW has failed to surpass the 2 million milestones in any month since September 2021. Overall, 2.11 million UAW connected to blockchain dapps in Q2, down 11% from the previous quarter. On the bright side, that’s still up 62% from a year earlier. 

Dapp activity has been chilled by a harsh crypto winter that has seen the price of most cryptocurrency assets fall by 70% or more from their all-time high values. Adding to the problems during the second quarter was the unprecedented collapse of the Terra ecosystem and serious liquidity issues for some of the leading platforms in the CeFi space, including BlockFi, Celsius, Voyager, and VC firm Three Arrows Capital (3AC). 

Moreover, the DappRadar Q2 Dapp Industry Report digs into how the collapse of Terra altered the blockchain landscape, causing the crypto industry to lose 34% of its value and fall below $1 trillion in total value locked for the first time since January 2021. It also looks at the problems created by the liquidity crunch in a number of leading CeFi dapps and how this strengthens the case for self-custody of crypto assets. Further, it highlights ongoing security concerns in an industry that lost more than $676 million worth of crypto assets to hackers in Q2. 

Despite the doom and gloom, the report found a number of reasons to remain optimistic about the dapp industry overall. Notably, while Ethereum NFT trading volumes were down 40% from the preceding quarter, sales count over the same period rose by 2%, indicating that demand for digital assets has increased over the period. Some of Ethereum’s rival blockchains were also bright spots. For example, Solana NFT trade value bucked the trend, doubling from the first quarter, while trading volume jumped 23%. 

Moreover, a number of blue-chip NFT collections have endured the crypto downturn remarkably well, holding their value and making a strong case for themselves as a safer investment than traditional crypto assets. The market capitalization of Ethereum’s top 100 NFT collections surpassed 6 million ETH for the first time, growing 7% as ETH’s price in U.S. dollars fell 72% during the quarter. 

The resilience of the blockchain gaming industry is another positive takeaway from the report. Although the dapp industry’s UAW declined 26% in the quarter, blockchain games only saw a slight 5% decrease in UAW. Newer titles such as Sunflower Land were among the highlights, increasing its user-base by a whopping 129%, while “move to earn” games such as Stepn also achieved strong growth. Moreover, blockchain games continued to attract record venture capital investments, signaling a bullish future for the segment overall. 

About DappRadar

Founded in 2018, DappRadar is the the World’s Dapp Store: a global decentralized applications (dapps) store, which makes it easy for its base of more than 1 million users per month to track, analyze, and discover dapp activity via its online platform. The platform currently hosts more than 10,000 dapps from across 30+ protocols and offers a plethora of consumer-friendly tools, including comprehensive NFT valuation, portfolio management, and daily industry-leading, actionable insight.

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