DappRadar Report: Blockchain Industry Defies Bears and Conflict

Kaunas, Lithuania, 2nd March, 2022,

Challenger networks, new projects and use cases drive activity to maintain blockchain usage stable in spite of macroeconomic events; DeFi recovers, while NFTs face a cool-down

Leading decentralized applications store DappRadar today published its February 2022 Dapp Industry Report, revealing stability for the blockchain applications space despite a bearish crypto market and macroeconomic conditions ensuing from the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

At an average of 2.35 million unique active wallets interacting with dapps daily, blockchain usage remained stable, losing only 5% against January, but gaining 385% v. While high NFT activity and incumbent DeFi dapps secured, once again, Ethereum’s market share, peer blockchains surpassed the network in terms of usage with Binance Smart Chain – now part of the BNB Chain – leading in terms of daily use at 608,000 or 25% of the UAW connecting. Notably, the Flow and Tezos networks beat the negative trends, gaining 49% and 23%, respectively.

After backsliding for several months, DeFi dapps began to regain ground last month, with $180 billion in assets locked – a 3% MoM increase. Despite a 4% loss in daily usage share to other dapp categories, macroeconomic conditions appear to be drawing large investors to the category, including JP Morgan and BNY Mellon. In parallel, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and ensuing economic sanctions are exposing the need for a decentralized ecosystem, with cryptocurrencies increasingly used to fund humanitarian and military aid. Total Value Locked rankings confirm confidence in newer DeFi projects, with Terra surpassing BNB Chain as Ethereum’s runner-up in this category too, and layer-1 solution Fantom increasing its TVL tenfold from September 2021 to $11.1 billion in February.

NFT trading volumes shrunk to $10.6 billion, marking a cool-down after a record January. Still, activity is on the rise, with the number of unique traders and the sales count respectively increasing 8% and 2% across protocols to signal growing demand. Further supporting a positive outlook, newer collections such as Clone-X and Azuki surpassed established projects like Bored Ape Yacht Club and CryptoPunks as the most traded collections in February. Equally, the increasing presence of NFTs on blockchains outside of Ethereum indicates a maturing space. Ronin-housed Axie Infinity became the first collection to surpass $4 billion in all-time sales, while NFT volumes on Avalanche grew 25% MoM and 1,320% vs 2021.

“During February, the blockchain space was very much business-as-usual, albeit in a bearish environment. Considerable gains or losses gave way to signals of consolidation and maturity, and to newer, challenger projects,” said Modesta Masoit, Head of Finance and Research at DappRadar. “We’ve got to divide February into pre- and post-Russia declaring war on Ukraine, however. Over the past few days, we’ve seen the true power and potential of the blockchain as the space rallied to aid Ukrainians via crypto. We’re on the cusp of a seismic shift in attitudes – to crypto, to community, to values.”

The February 2022 Dapp Industry Report is the latest edition of DappRadar’s regular monthly industry report – the company’s flagship report series covering the performance of the blockchain industry. Additional report series include the monthly Blockchain Gaming Report, Dapp User Behavior and Whale Analysis reports, as well as the bi-monthly New Dapps Report.

The full February 2022 Dapp Industry Report is currently available to RADAR token holders and upon request; it will be made available to the wider public on March 3, 2022 here.

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 9,000 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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Contacts

• Dan Edelstein
• pr@marketacross.com