Despite the ongoing hype surrounding the development of decentralized financial applications (DeFi) in 2019, the gaming and gaming market is still the most famous piece of blockchain applications today.
The DeFi is hard to grow above the gaming and gambling markets
According to the blockchain analysis website Dapp.com, the number of active users in decentralized applications for gaming and gambling is four times that of DeFi. This is a statistic calculated based on seven smart contract platforms as of December 31.
Source: Dapp.com
The development of DeFi applications is mainly focused on the Ethereum Blockchain in 2019.
According to Dapp.com, more than 75% of DeFi applications are operating on the Ethereum Blockchain. Meanwhile, the second most popular smart contract platform for DeFi is EOS, with 11% of DeFi apps working. Looking at Ethereum, we can see the growth of DeFi over the years more clearly. At some point in 2019, DeFi apps beat gaming and gambling apps in terms of several users. However, this record did not last long.
Source: Dapp.com
In addition to these three types of dApps, the number of users in the entire dApp ecosystem on ten different smart contract platforms has decreased significantly.
Data from Blockchain analysis site DappRadar shows that the number of dApp users has dropped by 62%, from a high of 110,000 in May 2019 to 41,000 in early December 2019. Even the name of dApps operating on 10 Blockchain platforms has decreased from 529 to 370.
Source: Dapp.com
Despite the growth in popularity and discussion around the DeFi market this year, the data shows that the dApp ecosystem is still struggling to gain enough traction.
According to DappRadar’s communications director, Jon Jordan, some of the small activities in dApps are concentrated on a few projects. In particular, about 18% of dApps are active on the Ethereum Blockchain, accounting for 99% of the total value of the dApp ecosystem.
He shared:
“Only a tiny number of dApps make up the majority of dApp value on Ethereum. In that context, the number of dApps running on Blockchain is irrelevant.”
The market is still active enough optimism
However, we should not be too pessimistic. Looking back at the data from the past, it seems that the downward trend in dApp adoption has only been seen since the end of 2018. This is the conclusion from the blockchain analysis website State of the Dapps.
Source: State of the Dapps
Even so, there are still many people in the cryptocurrency industry who believe in the potential of Blockchain technology. According to them, Blockchain will again act as a robust infrastructure for a new generation of the Internet.
Muneeb Ali, CEO of blockchain startup Blockstack, said he was quite confident with the new practical applications of Web 3 on Blockchain someday. Moreover, he is sure it will attract hundreds of millions of new users to join, enriching the fledgling industry.
Ali stated:
“Last year, from the end of 2018 to 2019, we began to focus on the ambition of developing practical applications, bringing tangible value on our platform. So what’s the next challenge? Of course, we will try to attract one million users to participate in these applications.”
The person who shares the same opinion with Ali is no stranger to the executive director of Input Output Hong Kong (IOHK), Charles Hoskinson. Similar to Ali, Hoskinson also set an optimistic and ambitious goal as above. He is currently involved in building a versatile Blockchain platform called Cardano, dedicated to new DeFi applications.
Hoskinson shared:
“From my personal opinion, the Blockchain and cryptocurrency industry only needs more time to develop appropriate technology. Once we have the technology, it will be easier for us to develop and deploy more dApps. I only look into the future after five to ten more years. No one or any market has ever achieved that. It is still very early. So we have no hurry!”
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