Annual report on DApps: Top DApps generate an average monthly revenue of approximately $152 million, while the number of active Ethereum addresses has dropped to third place.

Original Title: "DApp Annual Report: 4464 Active DApps, Ethereum's Annual Active Address Ranking Drops to Third"

Original Author: Carol, PANews

With the development of DeFi and NFT, DApps have taken a big step towards successfully landing on the C-end of the blockchain, and the outline of Web3.0 is vaguely visible. However, in 2022, influenced by the overall market environment, the development of DApps has not shown the same rapid progress as in the previous two years, and overall it has been relatively stable. In addition to the M2E craze that appeared at the beginning of the year, storage and social media DApps have also received attention from many parties, but these new changes are still in the process of accumulation and have not yet formed a force to drive industry transformation.

The importance of DApps in the industry is self-evident. In this article, PAData, the data journalism column under PANews, will review its development over the past year. It will analyze the current status of all 4464 DApps on 8 public chains, including Ethereum, EOS, Tron, Solana, Avalanche, BNB Chain, Polygon, and Optimism. It will also analyze the top 50 DApps in terms of user activity in the 5 major DApp categories of Games, DeFi, Marketplace, Collectibles, and Social & Media, attempting to comprehensively present the DApp landscape in 2022 from the perspective of "public chain x category x user".

Content Summary:

1) DApps on BNB Chain and Ethereum are mainly composed of three types, which cover all types. However, the ecosystems on the other six public chains only consist of 1-2 types, and some types are missing. Collectibles on Ethereum have surpassed DeFi as the dominant type, accounting for about 50% of the total.

2) Estimate the total number of active addresses for the year based on the daily average number of active addresses in the past 30 days for each active DApp. The estimated total number of active addresses for the year for 4464 active DApps on 8 public chains is approximately 113 million. Among them, BNB Chain has the most active users, followed by Polygon, Ethereum, and Optimism.

3) This year, only the active addresses of top Social&Media applications have shown an upward trend, with a cumulative increase of 1583.75% from January to December. The decline in active addresses for the other four categories of DApps is between 50% and 80%.

4) This year, only the top Social&Media applications have seen an increase in transaction volume, with a growth rate of 715.26% from January to December. The other four categories have all experienced varying degrees of decline, with Games experiencing a smaller drop of 17.47%.

5) The average monthly total revenue of the top 20 DApps in the head sector is approximately $152 million, and there is a significant downward trend throughout the year. The total revenue in January reached as high as $515 million, but the total revenue in December dropped to $24 million, a decrease of 95.34% for the year. The average total revenue for the top 20 DApps for the year is approximately $83 million.

4464 DApp estimated to have 113 million annual active addresses, DeFi is no longer the dominant application type on Ethereum

Major public chains have long viewed the construction of DApp ecosystems as their top development strategy. According to DappRadar's monitoring, the public chains with the most DApps and active addresses are Ethereum, EOS, Tron, Solana, Avalanche, BNB Chain, Polygon, and Optimism. PAData has captured 4,464 active DApps on these eight public chains with non-zero active address counts in the last 30 days.

According to statistics, from the perspective of "public chain x type", BNB Chain has surpassed Ethereum to become the public chain with the most active DApps, with a total of 1779 observed. Among them, in terms of quantity, DeFi is the dominant type on BNB Chain, with a total of 709, accounting for about 40% of the total. Secondly, HighRisk and Games are also the main types on BNB Chain, with 456 and 346 respectively, accounting for about 26% and 20% respectively.

Secondly, there are over 1000 active DApps on Ethereum, reaching a total of 1259. Among them, Collectibles have surpassed DeFi as the dominant type, with a total of 625 observed, accounting for approximately 50% of the total. DeFi and Games have become the main types, with 304 and 160 respectively, accounting for approximately 24% and 13%.

Overall, there are three main types of DApps on BNB Chain and Ethereum, which cover all types. However, the ecosystems of the other six public chains only consist of 1-2 types, with some types missing. For example, Polygon, which ranks third in the number of active DApps, has 442 DeFi DApps, accounting for about 50%, and 162 games, accounting for about 18%, out of 887 active DApps. Avalanche, which ranks fourth in the number of active DApps, has 106 DeFi DApps, accounting for about 54%, out of 197 active DApps. The number of active DApps on TRON, EOS, Optimism, and Solana is relatively small, and they are mainly focused on DeFi.

From the perspective of "public chain x user", based on the daily average number of active addresses of each active DApp in the past 30 days, the estimated total number of active addresses for 4464 active DApps on 8 public chains is about 113 million for the whole year. Among them, BNB Chain has the most active users, followed by Polygon, Ethereum, and Optimism. The estimated total number of active addresses for 1779 active DApps on BNB Chain is 53.02 million, which is much higher than the other 7 public chains. Secondly, the estimated total number of active addresses for 887 active DApps on Polygon is 24.65 million, and the estimated total number of active addresses for all active DApps on Ethereum and Optimism is also over 10 million. The remaining 4 public chains are affected by the small number of active DApps, and the estimated total number of active addresses for the whole year is also relatively small.

However, it should be noted that in the past 30 days, the overall market sentiment has been low, and the number of active addresses has also decreased. This may lead to a lower estimate of the total number of active addresses for the year. However, as a unified benchmark, this does not affect the comparison of active addresses for each public chain.

In order to eliminate the impact of the total number of active DApps on observing the number of active addresses of each public chain DApp, PAData also calculated the average estimated annual active addresses of individual DApps on each public chain. After removing extreme high values, Solana has the highest median estimated annual active addresses per individual DApp, at about 1782, followed by Optimism at about 1387. The median estimated annual active addresses of individual DApps on other public chains are mostly around 100-300.

From the distribution of the form, it can be seen that the estimated annual active address distribution of individual active DApps on each public chain is very dispersed, and overall it is greatly affected by low-activity long-tail DApps. In order to correct this influence, PAData focused on observing the mean estimated annual active addresses of the top 50 active DApps (the top 50 in terms of daily active addresses in the last 30 days) on each public chain, excluding outliers.

According to statistics, the median estimated annual active address count of the top 50 active DApps on BNB Chain and Polygon is the highest, at approximately 155,100 and 143,600 respectively. Ethereum follows closely behind, with the median estimated annual active address count of the top 50 DApps at 65,900. For other public chains, the median estimated annual active address count of the top 50 DApps is mostly around 5,000-7,000.

Head game category has 245 million active addresses, significant increase in active addresses and transaction volume in social media category

Different types of DApps exhibit significant differences in user scale and behavior patterns. Currently, the most numerous and highly regarded types of DApps include Games, DeFi, Marketplace, Collectibles, and Social & Media. Although there are also a considerable number of HighRisk and Gambling DApps, these two categories have never been considered as the key areas for the future development of DApps and will not be further observed.

PAData selected the top 10 active DApps in each category with the highest number of active addresses in the past 30 days as the analysis objects (referred to as "top DApps" below), including SimpleFX in the DeFi category, Collect Trump Cards, Valhalla, Art Blocks Experimental, and LaLiga Golazos in the Collectibles category, and Blur in the Marketplaces category. Although Blur has a high number of active addresses in the past 30 days, the data collection time is less than 3 months, which is not conducive to observing the annual data, so it is not considered. The remaining spots are filled in order of activity ranking until each category has 10 selected DApps. In addition, the focus here is on the differences in user scale and behavior patterns among different types of DApps. Therefore, although the selection of specific DApps has a certain degree of randomness, it does not affect the validity of the assumption that the performance of top applications represents the overall situation.

From the perspective of multi-chain layout, both Marketplaces and DeFi class top DApps have 6-7 multi-chain layout forms that have implemented more than 2 public chains, of which 4-5 have implemented more than 5 public chains. There are also 5 DApps in Games that have completed multi-chain layout with 2 public chains, but only 1-2 DApps in Collectibles and Social&Media have implemented multi-chain layout. Overall, multi-chain layout of various DApps is the trend, but there is still room for further expansion of multi-chain layout in various types, including Games. The increase in cross-chain circulation is conducive to enhancing the usability of DApps.

From the perspective of "Type x User", the total number of active addresses of the top 50 DApps in the 5 major categories is approximately 455 million for the whole year. Among them, Games has the highest total number of active addresses for top DApps, reaching 245 million, followed by DeFi with a total of 114 million active addresses. Collectibles has the lowest total number of active addresses for top DApps, with only 5.67 million.

Moreover, the active addresses of Collectibles' top applications are not significantly different, and they are relatively concentrated. The median number of annual active addresses for a single top DApp is only 81,300, and the highest is only 3.2 million. Similarly, Social&Media also has a lower number of annual active addresses for a single top DApp, with a median of about 271,900. In contrast, Games and DeFi have many more annual active addresses for their top applications, with medians reaching 9.7443 million and 2.9843 million, respectively, and both have maximum values exceeding 80 million. The characteristic of Marketplaces is that there is a large difference between the top applications, so although the maximum value of annual active addresses exceeds 36 million, the median is only 1.4461 million.

Additionally, from the changes in the active addresses of various category header applications, there is one point that is particularly noteworthy. That is, only the Social&Media header application's active addresses showed an upward trend this year, rising from 400,000 active addresses in January to 6.68 million active addresses in December, with a total increase of 1583.75% for the year. The active addresses of the other four categories of DApps all showed a downward trend throughout the year, with a decline in cumulative active addresses between 50% and 80% from January to December.

Additionally, transaction frequency and transaction amount are also aspects of user behavior patterns. In terms of transaction frequency, the top 50 DApps in the 5 major categories had a total of approximately 8.275 billion transactions throughout the year. Among them, Games had the highest total number of transactions, with approximately 7.14 billion transactions, accounting for 86% of the total. Marketplaces came in second, with a total of approximately 777 million transactions. The total number of transactions for Collectibles and Social&Media, the top DApps in their respective categories, were relatively low, with only 30.26 million and 56.82 million transactions respectively. This is related to the characteristics of the application types themselves, as Games have a super high-frequency interaction feature, while Collectibles and Social&Media usually require interaction when minting NFTs, resulting in a lower interaction frequency.

From the annual change in transaction volume, only Social&Media has seen growth. The total transaction volume of its top DApps increased from 1.5549 million in January to 12.6763 million in December, with a year-on-year increase of 715.26%. The other four categories all experienced varying degrees of decline. The total transaction volume of top DApps in Games decreased by 17.47% from January to December, with a smaller decline. Meanwhile, Collectibles experienced a larger decline, with a drop of over 84% during the same period.

From the transaction amount (the transaction amount that occurs when interacting with DApp contracts), the total annual transaction amount of the top 50 DApps in the 5 major categories is approximately 2.21 trillion US dollars. Among them, the annual total transaction volume of DeFi's top DApps is about 2.19 trillion, accounting for 99% of the total. The transaction volume of other types of DApps is very small, with the smallest being the total transaction volume of the top Social & Media DApp being only about 6 million US dollars for the whole year.

Combining with the number of transactions, it can be seen that the user behavior of Games is characterized by obvious small amount and high frequency interactions, DeFi is characterized by high amount and medium frequency interactions, while Collectibles and Socia&Media are characterized by ultra-small amount and low frequency interactions.

Due to the overall market environment, the total transaction volume of the top 5 categories of DApps has shown a significant downward trend throughout the year. Among them, the total transaction volume of Collectibles, Games, and Marketplaces has dropped by more than 95% from January to December. The category with the lowest decline during the same period is Social&Media, which is about 20%.

Monthly average number of developers for the header application is 437, and the monthly total revenue has dropped significantly to 24 million US dollars.

Finally, PAData also compiled data on the development and revenue of top applications. According to TokenTerminal's data, the top 15 DApps with the most developers include Chainlink, yearn.Finance, The Graph, MakerDAO, Uniswap, Lido Finance, Rarible, Synthetix, Balancer, Trader Joe, Livepeer, UMA, Aave, Opensea, and SushiSwap.

The average monthly total number of developers for 15 DApps is about 437, with the total number of developers per month in the first half of the year higher than that in the second half of the year. In other words, the development activity was higher in the first half of the year. Overall, the development activity showed a downward trend throughout the year. March, April, and June were the months with higher development activity, with a total of more than 480 developers per month. On the other hand, October and December were the months with lower development activity, with a total of less than 400 developers per month.

Looking at individual DApps, the average total number of users per DApp per month throughout the year is about 29 people. Among them, Chainlink has the highest number, with an average monthly development total of 75 people. Next, MakerDAO, The Graph, and yearn.Finance also have relatively high monthly development totals, all exceeding 30 people.

According to TokenTerminal's data, the top 20 DApps with the highest cumulative revenue (total amount of received fees) include LooksRare, Opensea, dYdX, PancakeSwap, Convex Finance, Ethereum Name Service, MakerDAO, Decentral Games, Axie Infinity, Synthetix, GMX, Lido Finance, 1inch, yearn.finance, SushiSwap, Aave, Trader Joe, X2Y2, Tornado Cash, and SpookySwap.

20 DApps have a monthly total revenue of approximately $152 million, and show a significant downward trend throughout the year. Total revenue in January reached as high as $515 million, but by December, it had fallen to $24 million, a decrease of 95.34% for the year. After June, the monthly total revenue of the 20 DApps never exceeded $70 million, indicating that the revenue of DApps is greatly affected by the overall market environment.

Looking at individual DApps, LooksRare and Opensea are the two NFT trading markets with the highest total revenue for the year, reaching $552 million and $450 million respectively. However, the total revenue of other DApps is much lower, with only two DeFi DApps, dYdX and PancakeSwap, exceeding $100 million. The average total revenue of the 20 DApps for the year is about $83 million, but if we exclude the influence of extreme high values and consider the median, it is only $35 million. Overall, the revenue performance of the top DApps is relatively good.

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