Dapp industry saw daily unique active users rise 50% in 2022

• The decentralised application (Dapp) industry saw a 50% growth in unique active wallets in 2022.
• DappRadar’s 2022 report shows that DeFi, gambling and blockchain games dapps were the most popular.
• However, DeFi protocols unique active wallets grew only 2% even as total value locked (TVL) by 73%.

2022 has been one of the most brutal for the cryptocurrency industry, with the crypto winter punctuated not just with plummeting prices but also major negative events. FTX’s implosion is a case in point, DappRadar, the world’s largest dapps store, noted in its Dapp Industry Report 2022.

But despite the turmoil and the ongoing bear market, crypto has shown a resilience that’s reflected in events such as Ethereum’s successful Merge that has seen energy consumption decline by 99.9%.

The year has also witnessed several other surprising growth metrics, DappRadar indicated in the end-of-year report. One of these is the significant growth in a key metric for the decentralised applications (dapps) sector – an increase in overall daily unique active wallets.

Dapps saw 50% growth in unique active wallets

According to the DappRadar report, the dapp industry registered a 50% increase in daily unique active wallets (dUAW) for 2022. Per the data, dUAWs rose from average of 1.58 million in 2021 to over 2.37 million in 2022.

As per the report, DeFi, gambling, and games were the most popular dapps categories. Although DeFi activity reduced, with dUAW only increasing by 2% to a daily average of 652,970 from 641,510 in 2021.

Gambling dapps registered 53,364 dUAW in 2021, but that number increased by 106% in 2022 to reach an average of 110,140 dUAW.

Blockchain-based games also saw a significant jump in daily unique active users, with an 85% increase in 2022 pushing the metric from 622,620 dUAW to 1,152,255 daily unique active wallets.

DeFi industry TVL decreased significantly in 2022

While the dapps industry remains on the path to greater adoption – we recently highlighted the sector saw a 31% growth in users in Q3, 2022 – the Total Value Locked (TVL) shrank massively amid the bear market. 

In 2022, DeFi TVL decreased by 73.97% to $55 billion as of December, down from the all-time high above $256 billion in December 2021.

Despite the significant declines, the top two DeFi chains remain as Ethereum and BNB Chain – which have unfortunately seen their TVL shrink by 74.56% and 62.5% respectively in 2022. Meanwhile, layer2 solutions like Arbitrum and Optimism have fared better. For instance, Arbitrum’s TVL only fell 12% while Optimism’s jumped 127%