KAUNAS, LITHUANIA / ACCESSWIRE / December 16, 2021 / Decentralized applications store DappRadar issues today its annual Dapp Industry Report, highlighting fresh records for the decentralized application (dapp) space. This year saw the blockchain industry expand across verticals, with usage growing sevenfold as compared with 2020 to reach a 2.7-million record of daily unique active wallets connected to dapps.
Undoubtedly this year's highlight, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) reached an all-time high of $23 billion in sales as celebrities, sports teams and big brands entered the market, ranking marketplaces like OpenSea, Atomic Market, and Solanart among the most popular dapps. Riding on the hype generated from Facebook's rebranding to Meta, virtual land sold for as much as $2.5 million a piece, marking a 500% price appreciation, while the floor market cap for the top 100 collections hit an estimated $16.7 billion.
Blockchain-based games also had a record-breaking year, with the play-to-earn revolution, spearheaded by Axie Infinity, driving 1.4 million daily interactions with games dapps - almost half of the industry's usage, and generating $4.5 billion for in-game NFTs. The social impact of this trend, especially in emerging economies like the Philippines and Venezuela, helped lure the attention of influential VCs, who collectively poured $4 billion in investment into the category in 2021.
"We've seen crucial progression in the dapp space this year, placing us on the cusp of mass adoption. While 2020 was ‘The Year of DeFi', 2021 is certainly ‘The Year of NFTs', with gaming thrown in in bulk over the last quarter. As these three categories converge, 2022 will, I expect, come to be known as ‘The Year of the Metaverse', with project supporting and helping navigate this complex, cross-chain and cross-category paradigm stealing the spotlight," said DappRadar Head of Finance and Research Modesta Masoit.
After 2020 saw billions flowing into the DeFi, the category hit a slowdown in 2021, but also showed considerable signs of maturing as it welcomed Ethereum competitors, such as Solana, Avalanche, and Terra, and, at $200 billion, saw a sevenfold year-on-year increase in the total value locked into the space, despite recent exchange hacks and chilling regulation.
While 60% of DeFi's TVL remains on Ethereum, the networks diversifying the segment exploded, with BSC ranking second with TVL of $22.75 billion, and Avalanche - third, with a $12.48 billion TVL. The fourth spot goes to Terra, sitting uncomfortably between Avalanche and Solana.
Financially speaking, the blockchain industry witnessed a record-breaking year, with $27 billion in fresh funding poured into cryptocurrency and blockchain companies. It is, however, the social aspect of this growth, with dapps infiltrating the mainstream and big names entering the space, that most poignantly signals that dapps will soon be an everyday feature.
The 2021 Dapp Industry Report is the latest edition of DappRadar's regular monthly industry reports - the company's flagship 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.
For the full 2021 Dapp Industry Report, please visit
https://dappradar.com/blog/2021-dapp-industry-report
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.
Socials: Twitter - Discord - Reddit - Telegram - Facebook
Contact:
Dan Edelstein
[email protected]
SOURCE: DappRadar