DApp Industry 2022 Annual Review: Active Users Decline, Social Media Applications Rise Against the Trend

In 2022, influenced by the overall market environment, the DApp industry developed relatively steadily, without the breakthrough rise seen in the previous two years. At the beginning of the year, there was a brief craze for Move-to-Earn, and storage and social media DApps also received attention, but these new changes are still in the stage of quantitative accumulation and have not yet formed the force to drive a qualitative change in the industry.

This article will review the development of the DApp industry over the past year from multiple dimensions, analyze the status of 4,464 active DApps on 8 major public chains, and focus on the top 10 most active DApps among the 50 DApps in five major categories: games, DeFi, trading markets, NFT collectibles, and social media, comprehensively presenting the development trend of the DApp industry in 2022.

Main Findings

1. The DApp types on BNB Chain and Ethereum are relatively comprehensive, while other public chain ecosystems are more singular. NFT collectible applications on Ethereum have surpassed DeFi to become dominant, accounting for about 50% of the total.

2. Based on the estimated daily average active addresses over the past 30 days, the total annual active addresses for 8 public chains with 4464 active DApps is approximately 113 million. Among them, BNB Chain users are the most active, followed by Polygon, Ethereum, and Optimism.

3. This year, only the activity of top social media applications shows a rising trend, with a cumulative active address rise of 1583.75% from January to December. The activity of the other four categories of DApps has decreased by between 50% and 80%.

4. Similarly, only the transaction volume of leading social media applications is on the rise, with a cumulative transaction increase of 715.26% from January to December. Other categories have seen varying degrees of decline, with the gaming category down by 17.47%, which is relatively small.

5. The top 20 DApps have an average monthly total revenue of approximately $152 million, showing a significant downward trend throughout the year. The total revenue in January was $515 million, dropping to $24 million in December, with an annual decline of 95.34%. The average annual revenue for the 20 DApps is approximately $83 million.

DApp Ecosystem Overview: Decline in Active Users, Erosion of Ethereum's Dominance

According to data statistics, BNB Chain has now surpassed Ethereum to become the public chain with the most active DApps, with a total of 1779 active DApps. Among them, DeFi is the dominant type, with 709, accounting for about 40%; followed by high-risk and gaming categories, with 456 and 346 respectively, accounting for about 26% and 20%.

The number of active DApps on Ethereum is 1,259, among which NFT collections surpass DeFi to become the dominant type, with 625, accounting for about 50%. DeFi and gaming categories have 304 and 160 respectively, accounting for about 24% and 13%.

From the perspective of user activity, based on the average daily active addresses over the past 30 days, the total annual active addresses for 4,464 active DApps across 8 public chains is approximately 113 million. Among them, BNB Chain has the most active users, with an estimated total of 53.02 million annual active addresses, far exceeding other public chains. Next is Polygon with 24.65 million, while Ethereum and Optimism also surpass 10 million.

To eliminate the impact of the total number of DApps, the median estimated annual active addresses of individual DApps on each public chain has been calculated. After excluding outliers, Solana ranks highest with about 1782, followed by Optimism with 1387. Other public chains are around 100-300.

Focus on observing the top 50 DApps by activity on various public chains, it was found that BNB Chain and Polygon performed the best, with an estimated median annual active address count of approximately 155,100 and 143,600 respectively, followed by Ethereum with 65,900. Other public chains mostly have around 5,000 to 7,000.

Performance of Leading Applications: The user base for gaming is the largest, while social media categories are experiencing a rise.

Analyzed the performance of 10 leading DApps across 5 major types. From the perspective of multi-chain layout, trading markets and DeFi applications have a higher degree of multi-chain integration, with 6-7 achieving deployment on more than 2 public chains, and 4-5 achieving deployment on more than 5 public chains. The gaming category also has 5 achieving dual-chain deployment. NFT collectibles and social media categories have a lower degree of multi-chain integration.

From the perspective of user scale, the total number of active addresses for the top 50 DApps throughout the year is approximately 455 million. Among them, gaming ranks the highest, reaching 245 million; followed by DeFi with 114 million; and the lowest is the NFT collectibles category, with only 5.67 million.

It is worth noting that this year only the activity level of top social media applications showed a rise, with the cumulative active addresses increasing from 400,000 to 6.68 million from January to December, a rise of 1583.75%. The other four categories all showed a downward trend, with a decrease ranging from 50% to 80%.

From the perspective of interaction behavior, the total number of transactions for the top 50 DApps throughout the year is approximately 8.275 billion times. Among them, the gaming category is the highest, reaching 7.14 billion times, accounting for about 86%. The second is the trading market category with 777 million times. NFT collectibles and social media categories are relatively low, with only 30.26 million times and 56.82 million times, respectively. This is related to the characteristics of the applications, as the interaction frequency is high in games, while NFTs and social media mainly interact during the minting process.

Similarly, only the transaction volume of social media type is on the rise, increasing from 1.5549 million to 12.6763 million from January to December, a rise of 715.26%. Other categories have all seen varying degrees of decline, with the gaming category experiencing a smaller decrease of 17.47%, while the NFT collectibles category saw the largest drop, exceeding 84%.

From the perspective of transaction volume, the total transaction amount for 50 leading DApps in the whole year is approximately $2.21 trillion. Among them, DeFi accounts for 99%, reaching $2.19 trillion. Other categories have relatively smaller amounts, with social media being the lowest, at only around $6 million.

By combining the number of transactions and the amount of money, we can see the behavioral characteristics of different types of DApp users: game types have low-value high-frequency interactions, DeFi has high-value medium-frequency interactions, and NFT collectibles and social media have ultra-low-value ultra-low-frequency interactions.

Affected by the market, the total trading volume of the top 5 categories of DApps showed a significant downward trend throughout the year. The trading volume of NFTs, games, and trading markets from January to December all experienced a decline of over 95%. The social media category had the smallest decline, at about 20%.

Head Application Development and Revenue Situation

A total of 15 DApps with a large number of developers were counted, with an average total of about 437 developers per month. The development activity in the first half of the year was higher than in the second half, showing a downward trend throughout the year. March, April, and June are peak months for development, with total numbers exceeding 480 developers each month. Activity is lower in October and December, with less than 400 developers per month.

The average total number of developers for a single DApp is about 29 people per month. Chainlink is the highest, reaching 75 people. MakerDAO, The Graph, and yearn.Finance are also relatively high, all exceeding 30 people.

Analyzing 20 DApps with high cumulative total revenue, the average monthly total revenue is approximately $152 million, showing a significant downward trend throughout the year. Total revenue in January was $515 million, dropping to $24 million in December, a decrease of 95.34%. Since June, the monthly total revenue has consistently been below $70 million, reflecting the significant impact of the market on DApp revenue.

LooksRare and OpenSea are the two DApps with the highest annual revenue, reaching $552 million and $450 million, respectively. In addition, only dYdX and PancakeSwap, two DeFi applications, exceed $100 million. The average annual revenue for 20 DApps is approximately $83 million, with a median of $35 million, indicating that the top DApps are performing relatively well.