At DappRadar we track daily active wallets, transaction volume, and total value locked. This data gives us a window into how each blockchain and the broader dapp ecosystem is performing.
The results of Q3 2020 were superior to the previous quarter. In terms of total daily active unique wallets, the 13 blockchains listed on DappRadar already hold more than 200,000 daily wallets. The major activity is occurring within the top three blockchains: Ethereum, TRON, and, EOS.
Total transaction volumes reached $125 billion in Q3 2020. $113 billion higher than it was in Q2 2020. The Ethereum blockchain accounts for 96% of the total created value and the majority of it belongs to the DeFi ecosystem.
Despite the incredible development of Ethereum. EOS and TRON also tried to join the hype. Both blockchains duplicated a few Ethereum dapps that seemed to be driving activity.
Recently, smaller blockchains showed interest in creating their own DeFi ecosystems and delivered a couple of new DeFi related dapps.
Key takeaways
- Ethereum stands as the most significant blockchain even given the gas price jump. The value of the blockchain grew by $109 billion in Q3 2020 if compared to Q2 2020.
- TRON continues to disturb Ethereum’s dominance. Still, 60% of activity remains within the Gambling & High-Risk categories.
- Mixed results for EOS in Q3 2020. The games category started to weaken, while DeFi compensated for the loss.
- Our ‘best of the rest’ in Q3 2020 goes to a few smaller blockchains: IOST, Ontology, and NEO for their attempts to join the world of Decentralized Finance.
Ethereum
- Overview
- Decentralized Finance & Decentralized Exchanges
- Games
- Marketplaces
- Collectibles
- Gambling & High-Risk
- Conclusions
TRON
- Overview
- Decentralized Finance & Decentralized Exchanges
- Games
- Gambling & High-Risk
- Conclusions
EOS
- Overview
- Decentralized Finance & Decentralized Exchanges
- Games
- Gambling
- Conclusions
- Hive
- Steem
- WAX
- IOST
- ONT
- NEO
- Waves
- ThunderCore
- Bora
- VeChain
Ethereum: Overview
Taking a high-level view, Ethereum has experienced enormous attention recently due to an explosion within the DeFi and DEX dapp categories. Governance tokens together with yield farming created the hype that drove the network. By no surprise, Ethereum grew in almost all metrics.
While some anticipated Ethereum 2.0’s release, others joined the hype regardless of the high Ethereum gas prices. The prices showed impressive heights during Q3 2020. At peak moments transaction costs were more than 400 Gwei.
From a protocol currency pricing perspective ETH is still the second strongest cryptocurrency. The price is still very volatile though. We have already witnessed the price reaching more than $470 at the beginning of September. To only suddenly collapse to $310 and is now around $350.
On the other hand, as per the average price for Q3 2020 compared to Q2 2020, we observe an increase of 56%.
In general, looking from the daily active wallets perspective Ethereum has increased by 154% compared to Q2 2020. As already suggested the increase was triggered by DeFi and DEX category activity. Together the categories grew from 12,800 daily active wallets to 50,200 in Q3 2020.
Marketplaces and Collectibles showed very positive signs reaching almost 2,000 and 130 wallets respectively by the end of Q3. Important to note, that these categories started to increase only in September. Growth triggered by the introduction of governance tokens and yield farming.
Ethereum: Decentralized Finance and Decentralized Exchanges
Governance tokens accompany the majority of top dapps in the Decentralized Finance and Decentralized Exchange categories (DeFi ecosystem).
As a result, 2020 thus far has been the year of DeFi ecosystem development and volatility and it is essential to review the main metrics within the category. The first thing to consider is daily active wallets.
At the end of Q3 2019, we barely see 3,200 active wallets within the DeFi ecosystem. By the end of Q2 2020, we see around 13,000 active wallets, and by the end of Q3 2020 more than 52,000. Growth of around 1,519% year-on-year and around 300% quarter-on-quarter.
It means that within Q3 DeFi became the largest ecosystem in Ethereum holding 90% of total daily active wallets.
The majority of the DeFi ecosystem dapps showed improved activity but the biggest surge came from the liquidity dapp Uniswap. Almost 74% of the DeFi ecosystem’s daily active wallets belong to Uniswap which showed growth of 560% quarter-on-quarter.
The second place belongs to Balancer with 1,100 daily active wallets and third place goes to SushiSwap with around 984 daily active wallets. Major developments have occurred in the number of daily active wallets within all major DeFi dapps both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter.
The second metric to look at is the value of the DeFi ecosystem. There are different ways to measure the movement of the DeFi ecosystem from a value perspective. First of all, we are going to look at transaction volume.
The DeFi ecosystem holds $134 billion in 2020. This is 30 times higher than it was within all of 2019. This metric shows that the DeFi ecosystem grew by 3,952% year-on-year and 1,079% quarter-on-quarter.
We spot that the DeFi ecosystem is not only the number one category but also holds 99% of the value within the Ethereum blockchain in Q3 2020.
On the other hand, it is also important to look at the state of DeFi through a total value locked perspective. According to the DappRadar DeFi page, total value locked (TVL) surged by 380% from the end of Q2 2020 reaching $10 billion by the end of Q3 2020.
The dapps accounting for the majority of the TVL comprised of Uniswap, MakerDAO, and Curve. The growth of Uniswap was driven mostly by the introduction of the UNI governance token.
To conclude, we witness huge spikes within daily active wallets, transaction volumes, and total value locked. This gives us an understanding that the DeFi ecosystem together with governance tokens generated enormous results that led to Ethereum’s growth regardless of high gas prices.
Ethereum: Games
As a category, Games have historically been the driving force behind Ethereum’s network growth. In Q2 2020 we witnessed a tremendous drop and the trend has continued into Q3 2020. The reason behind it is still high Ethereum gas prices and looking at the prevailing trends of the DeFi ecosystem, it doesn’t look like that situation is going to change anytime soon.
By the end of Q3 2020, the category held 1,400 daily active wallets, down from 10,000 in Q1 2020 and 2,000 in Q2 2020. Meaning it has dived by 28% in Q3 2020 when compared to Q2 2020. And 80% year-on-year.
The most affected dapps are My Crypto Heroes, Blockchain Cuties, Knight Story, and BRAVE Frontier Heroes.
Contrary to daily active wallets, transaction volumes increased by $2.4 million. The biggest contributors were Axie Infinity and Gods Unchained. They generated $1.1 million and $0.6 million respectively.
Ethereum: Marketplaces
Similar to the Games category, Marketplaces also faced challenges while dealing with high Ethereum gas prices back in Q2 2020. However, we recently witnessed an increase in both daily active wallets and transaction volume.
By the end of Q3 2020, the Marketplace category held 1,900 daily active wallets, while there were only 352 in Q2 2020. Meaning it surged by 438% in Q3 2020 when compared to Q2 2020. And 141% year-on-year.
The two biggest contributors were Rarible and OpenSea. Rarible reached 1,200 daily active wallets. While OPENSEA generated around 500. Of course, the reason behind such an increase was the newly released RARI governance token.
Transaction volumes followed the same trend. The volumes increased by 347% reaching all-time high figures of $20 million. Of course, half the volume generated came from Rarible. This proves governance tokens and yield farming to be powerful tools for Marketplaces too.
Ethereum: Collectibles
The Ethereum Collectibles category is still relatively small when compared to other categories. At peak times, the daily active wallet number is not higher than 200 daily. Nevertheless, daily activity has increased by 250% in Q3 2020 when compared to Q2 2020.
In terms of transaction volume, the category has surged by 57% in Q3 2020 when compared to Q2 2020 and 2574% when compared to Q3 2019. The dapp behind the growth is CryptoPunks.
In September 2020, CryptoPunks generated more than $2 million. The total transaction volume of collectibles in Q2 2020 is $2.3 million out of which Cryptopunks generated 97%.
Worth mentioning that the increased interest in CryptoPunks was triggered by the marketplace Rarible. The $RARI incentives program triggered the sales and increased the floor price per punk from 2 ETH to 6 ETH now.
Ethereum: Gambling & High-Risk
In Q3 2020, we witness a downward trend in the Gambling & High-Risk categories. Seemingly the High-Risk activity spike witnessed in Q2 has calmed down for now. At least in regards to daily active wallets.
In Q3, daily active wallets decreased by 80% compared to Q2 2020. Of course, the category was affected by both decreased interest in the HEX project and high Ethereum gas prices.
Contrary to daily active wallets, transaction volumes increased. The increase was driven by HEX. The controversial dapp generated $220 million in transaction volume and accounts for 50% of the total.
Ethereum: Conclusions
As already noted, 2020 is going to be a crucial year for the Ethereum blockchain and its growing DeFi ecosystem. There are major events occurring that mean Ethereum will become even more important than it is now. The success of the DeFi ecosystem is currently defined by the future of the governance token and yield farming craze.
On the other hand, other categories seem to be joining the hype. The first token RARI within the NFT ecosystem created a precedent that is yet to be followed.
Contrary to what was observed, activity within the Games category is down due to the increase in gas prices. This should reiterate the importance of ETH 2.0 and, in the meantime the value of side chains in order for the Games category to have a healthy future.
TRON: Overview
2020 has been a remarkable year for TRON. Both daily active wallets and transaction volumes skyrocketed reaching all times-high values.
The launch of TRON 4.0 and the protocol entering the DeFi space has evolved further in Q3 2020. On average the price of the TRX token increased by 64% in Q3 2020 compared to Q2 2020. TRX is still within the top 15 strongest cryptocurrencies according to Coingecko.
While the biggest portion of daily active wallets was generated in the High-Risk category, a positive development is seen in the DeFi ecosystem. Transaction volumes reached their highest point this year too.
TRON: Decentralized Finance & Decentralized Exchanges
TRON showed barely any activity in the DeFi category back in 2019 but has started to make a dent in Ethereum’s dominance with new offers in Q3 2020.
The number of DeFi ecosystem dapps exploded during Q3 2020. There were three DeFi dapps available on TRON back in Q2 2002. By the end of Q3, the total number of dapps submitted to DappRadar increased to 27.
During September 2020, the DeFi ecosystem experienced its highest ever daily wallet activity – 42,009. An increase of 1,896% in Q3 2020 when compared to Q2 2020.
The major contributor to this increase in daily activity is from three recently released dapps. Sun and JUST in the DeFi category and JustSwap in the Decentralized Exchange category.
From the DeFi category, Sun and JUST are the most recent releases. Showing on average more than 4,000 daily active wallets. Contributing almost 50% and 25% respectively to the total activity.
From the DEX category, JustSwap is the only dapp sustaining high wallet activity in Q3 2020 by crossing more than 11,000. JustSwap is essentially a Tron-based alternative to UniSwap.
Transaction volume increased by 2,577% in Q3 2020 when compared to Q2 2020. The volume grew from $14 million to $384 million in Q3 2020.
Analyzing the transaction volumes of TRON’s DEX category in Q3 2020 it’s worth mentioning that DEX’s hold a 41% share of the total volume. The only dapp helping the category grow is JustSwap. Volumes have surged by 2,941% in Q3 2020 compared to Q2 2020 and 1,136% when compared to Q3 2019.
TRON: Games
The Games category faced a steep decrease in the early part of 2020. In Q3 2020, the category has made progress in terms of both daily activity and transaction volumes. There are only 56 games that have been submitted to DappRadar, out of which only 9 are active in Q3 2020.
The daily activity and volume increased by 31% and 109% respectively compared to Q2 2020. The increase in both the metrics is due to IOI-game and ChainZ Arena.
As it is very clear in the graph of Games transaction volume, Q3 2020 has performed better when compared to Q2 and Q1 2020. The reasons behind this category having better volume comparatively to Q1 and Q2 2020 is ChainZ Arena which has generated almost $2 million.
ChainZ Arena is the only game majorly contributing to the categories survival. The game is a cross-chain game that is already available on Ethereum and EOS blockchains. This dapp contributes 65% of daily activity to the total Games category on TRON.
TRON: Gambling & High-Risk
Gambling and High-Risk have played a prominent role in TRON’s growth throughout the year and remains the largest category. Since Q2 2020, we have witnessed the season of High-Risk which continued into Q3 2020.
There were 645 dapps submitted to DappRadar in this category to date. Of those 695, 225 are Gambling dapps and 422 are High-Risk dapps.
Going forward, and looking at the number of active dapps in the category (any dapp with 1 or more daily active unique wallets) there are only 146 dapps active in Q3 2020 in the Gambling & High-Risk ecosystem.
Daily active unique wallets have increased by 586% compared to Q2 2020 and the category has experienced an all-time high by crossing 50,000 daily active wallets. TRONCHAIN and TRONEX were responsible for the majority of the growth.
Meanwhile in the Gambling category daily active wallets increased by 68% compared to Q2 2020. WINk, 1cent, and RocketGame are responsible for this growth.
Volume increased by 2,725% in the High-Risk category when compared to Q2 2020 and by 31% in Gambling when compared to Q2 2020. This increase in transaction volume has been caused by TRONCHAIN, 200TRON, TRONEX, WINk, and RocketGame.
TRON: Conclusions
TRON has skyrocketed reaching an all-time-high value. This was fueled by increased activity within the High-Risk category and expanding DeFi ecosystem.
Daily activity within the Games category steadily increased in Q3 by 31% with a 109% increase in transaction volumes.
To conclude, TRON has faced major changes in Q3 2020. The launch of version 4.0 and the beginnings of a DeFi ecosystem show positive signs the protocol could outgrow its reputation as ‘Las Vegas on the blockchain”. The given perspective shows the network’s ambition to grow its DeFi ecosystem and attract more visitors too.
EOS: Overview
In Q3 2020 the EOS blockchain continues to demonstrate increases in all matrics. Despite some spikes, the EOS token price was around $2.86 in Q3 2020. 10% higher than it was back Q2 2020.
Additionally, daily active wallets increased by 39% quarter-on-quarter. The biggest drivers so far were the DeFi ecosystem and Social dapps.
EOS: Decentralized Finance and Decentralized Exchanges
It seems that the current DeFi trend has also come to the EOS blockchain. Daily active wallets increased by 268% quarter-on-quarter. Two DeFi ecosystem dapps were in the lead: Newdex and DeFi Network. Both dapps reached 1,100 daily active wallets by the end of Q3 2020.
In regards to transaction volume. The value surged to around $3 billion in Q3, 452% higher than in Q2 2020. Growth was fueled by Newdex and Defibox. While the majority of total transaction volumes belong to Newdex, the newcomer Defibox made its mark, generating $350 million.
EOS: Games
Games & Marketplaces are still the largest categories on EOS in terms of daily active wallets. Accounting for 25% of total activity. The rollercoaster trend could be spotted from the beginning of 2019 until now and a decrease in daily active wallets of 17% has been observed by the end of Q3 2020.
The decrease was mainly driven by EOS Dynasty (EOS). Daily active wallets decreased from 4,100 to 1,800. On the other hand, dapp game Upland showed some excellent player retention and compensated for the loss. Daily active wallets grew 59% reaching 2,700 at the end of Q3.
Contrary to daily active wallets, transaction volumes increased by 22%. The biggest dapps were ChainZ Arena generating $1 million in Q3 2020.
EOS: Gambling
Last but not least is the Gambling category. Historically, the dapps within the category were the biggest driver of growth. In Q3 daily active wallets decreased almost four times year-on-year and are now around 1,900.
Felix and Dice account for 68% of the daily active wallets. The latter decreased from 2,100 in Q2 2020 to 555 in Q3 2020.
On the other hand, transaction volume surged slightly by 14%. The same dapp Felix increased its transaction volume by $116 million in Q3 2020.
EOS: Conclusions
Q3 2020 for EOS hasn’t brought anything new so far but we do spot some positivity within the blockchain. Transaction volumes increased in all categories, while daily active wallets surged only in the DeFi ecosystem. This brings us to understand that the increase is based on just a few dapps, and as such is still very fragile.
Hive
The Hive protocol has been growing since the day it was released. In Q3 2020 the protocol is stable with daily active wallets grown by 1% compared to Q2 2020. Dapps such as Splitnerlands, Peakd, and the Hive Blog are all major contributors to the growth. The SPLINTERLANDS dapp hold 60% of the total activity with at least 6,000 wallets per day.
On the other hand, nothing of real note has occurred within the blockchain during Q3 2020. The network maintained similar activity as in Q2. Business as usual and a steady level of activity can only be positive things.
Steem
The whole blockchain community is aware of Steem’s downfall since March 2020. Quarter by quarter the protocol lost its daily active wallets to the forked Hive protocol and the situation only got worse since when Splinterlands migrated.
In general, both daily active wallets and transaction volumes nosedived in Q3 2020 by 26% and 46% respectively. The biggest decrease was driven by the games dapp DrugWars.
WAX
WAX is based on the EOS.IO SDK and was only launched in late December of 2019. To-date, 45 dapps are being tracked out of which only 21 are active.
In Q3 2020, daily active wallets on Wax increased by 249% compared to Q2 2020.
The most popular dapps were Prospectors from Games, EarnBet from Gambling, GoPepe from Collectibles, and Atomic Assets & AtomicMarket from Marketplaces. In total, daily active wallets are around 7,000 and are steadily increasing via all categories.
IOST
IOST has only 44 dapps submitted to DappRadar running right now. Mainly in the Gambling and Games categories. The dapps driving this activity are XPET, IOST Ball, Pumpkin, and Virus Battle. Showing a daily audience that ranges between 100 and 400 combined.
By looking at the graph below, daily activity in Q3 2020 has increased by 20% compared to Q2 2020. On the 14th of September, the protocol witnessed a spike in activity by 2,283 caused by Pumpkin. It’s the only DeFi dapp on IOST released recently and remains the first yield farming project within the protocol.
By looking at the success of Ethereum in the DeFi space it seems like IOST is entering the space to make its mark. Let’s wait and watch how it grows in Q4 2020.
Ontology
Daily active wallets on Ontology have increased by 104% when compared to Q2 2020.
Ontology has made an entry into the DeFi space just like IOST. There are only 2 dapps: Wing and the Unifi Protocol. Wing is the major reason for the increase in daily active wallets. This dapp describes itself as a credit-based, cross-chain defi platform.
This proves that even the smallest protocols are searching for a way to enter the hype around the DeFi ecosystem in an attempt to grow user activity and volumes.
NEO
In January 2020, NEO witnessed a few new dapps. The protocol endured a roller-coaster quarter-by-quarter and we reported a decline of 78% in Q2 2020.
The protocol has almost lost all its daily activity in Q3 2020 too. While a very new DeFi dapp called Flamingo released on the 28th of September has brought a different perspective its yet to be seen what happens here.
The other dapps running on the NEO network with active are the Switcheo Network, Nash, Blockchain Cuties, and Travala. They are the dapps keeping the NEO protocol alive right now.
Waves
DappRadar is tracking over 23 dapps running on the Waves blockchain of which only 3 are active. The protocol has gone through a rough patch in Q2 2020.
However, in Q3 2020, the daily active wallets increased from 157 to 472 compared with Q2 2020.
The dapp driving this volume and user activity on Waves is the Neutrino Protocol, which is similar MakerDAO wherein users can lock up collateral (in this case WAVES tokens), generating the stablecoin USDN in return.
ThunderCore
ThunderCore as a protocol is growing quarter-by-quarter in 2020. Only 19 dapps are submitted to DappRadar and all are active.
In Q3 2020, the protocol has performed pretty well in terms of daily activity showing an increase of 72% compared to Q2 2020. By the end of Q3 2020, there are more than 25,000 daily active wallets. The dapp responsible for the majority of this activity is TT Mining.
BORA
In Q2 2020, we discussed the BORA protocol to be different when compared to main protocols like EOS, TRON, and Ethereum. DappRadar started tracking BORA dapps at the end of May 2020 and instantly we could see the growth. However, the story is different by the end of Q3 2020. The daily active wallets have decreased by 43%.
The only dapp which keeps the category alive is Seven Guardians for BORA with 10 daily active wallets at the moment of writing. Is it still early to judge, but lack of activity is obvious within the network.
VeChain
On the VeChain Protocol, there are only 15 dapps submitted to DappRadar out of which only 4 are currently running at the end of Q3 2020. Having said that, only Vexchange is making a major contribution to the protocol with 43 daily active wallets.
Conclusions
Ethereum continues to be the most significant blockchain, attracting a value of $119 billion in 2020 Q3 to the dapp ecosystem. Growth was driven mostly by the growing DeFi and DEX categories.
The second-largest blockchain TRON showed impressive results too. The increase is observed within the DeFi and High-Risk categories.
EOS activity hasn’t changed much in Q3 2020. While games decreased, DeFi compensated for the loss.
Activity on the WAX network in Q3 is being driven mainly through the Collectible and Marketplace categories. WAX has established itself as the home of NFTs since its inception but will it make a bold step into the world of decentralized finance.
IOST, Ontology, and NEO along with other smaller protocols showed an interest in bringing the DeFi category to their networks.
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