Dapp.com: 2019 Decentralized Market Report (Full Version)

Dapp.com reviewed the data of Dapps on major public blockchains, including Ethereum, Tron, EOS, Steem, NEO, and IOST in terms of the number of new Dapps, users, and transaction volume. In summary, despite a significant increase in user numbers in 2019, user retention remains low, with only one-fifth of users continuing from 2018. Overall, Ethereum consistently ranked first in most data metrics, followed by EOS and TRON, with EOS leading in transaction volume.

(The following is the complete report content from Dapp.com)

Overall Market

• In 2019, the transaction volume of dapps on mainstream public chains reached $1 billion, an increase of 58.5% compared to 2018, excluding tokens issued on various chains.
• In 2019, there were over 3.02 billion on-chain transactions, with the EIDOS project based on EOS alone contributing 230 million transactions. Excluding EIDOS, the 2,216 active applications in 2019 generated 872 million transactions.
• The number of active dapp users in 2019 doubled from 2018, increasing from 1.48 million to 3.11 million, with 2.77 million new users. However, dapps still face the challenge of low user retention, as only 348,000 users in 2019 were from 2018, accounting for just 11% of active users.

• Financial applications, including lending and pledging, saw the most significant user growth, with a 610% increase, and a 251% increase in transaction volume.
• In 2019, gambling applications saw a 372% increase in users, with transaction volume doubling to reach $6.7 billion. High-risk dapps also experienced a 372% increase in users and a 218% increase in transaction volume.
• Gaming users saw expected growth, increasing by 162% compared to 2018. More games targeting the mass market were introduced to the market, but the investment effect of dapp games weakened, resulting in a significant decrease in transaction volume, dropping by 60% compared to 2018.

Market Overview

• In 2019, a total of 1,445 decentralized applications were launched on the six largest smart contract platforms, with Ethereum leading at 690, followed by Tron at 411. Ethereum and Tron formed the first group in terms of user volume, creating a gap with EOS.
• EOS's transaction volume approached $5 billion, surpassing Ethereum and Tron to become the top platform for the year.
• Throughout the year, Ethereum had over 1.4 million active dapp users, including 1.28 million new users and 137,000 returning users, accounting for 10% of total active users. EOS had a 23% returning user rate, while Tron had the lowest rate, with a total of 967,000 active users in 2019, of which less than 2% (less than 20,000 users) were returning users from 2018.
• Compared to other public chains, EOS had the highest overall dapp activity, with 479 out of 493 dapps being active, reaching 97%. Steem ranked second at 87%, while Ethereum and Neo had the lowest rates at 62% each.

Market Overview of Various Chains

• Tron's mainnet account numbers grew significantly due to the issuance of USDT on the chain and support from Samsung Wallet and Opera browser, reaching 3,261,492 accounts. According to Tether data, the amount of USDT issued under the TRC standard on Tron has exceeded $900 million, close to 20% of the total USDT supply.
• Among the blockchains mentioned in the report, EOS dapps had the highest user activity rate at nearly 48.91%, approaching 50%, indicating that nearly half of EOS accounts were activated for decentralized services.
• Neo's dapp promotion was relatively weak, or it can be said that Neo's token-holding users had low interest in dapps, with less than 10% of active addresses having used dapps.

User Analysis

• In 2019, gambling and high-risk applications continued to be the most favored by developers, with over 900 applications launched in these two categories. Gambling saw the highest growth in new users, with over 1.1 million new users, the only category to reach a million new users, surpassing Ethereum's total user count for the year. Gambling also had over 100,000 returning users, the most retained users among applications.
• Decentralized financial applications (financial and decentralized exchanges) formed the second-largest dapp ecosystem, with over 1 million active users combined.
• High-risk applications had the lowest user retention, with only 2% of returning users still participating in high-risk applications in 2019.

Application Segmentation

• Compared to 2018, daily active users saw a multiple increase in 2019, but after April, both user activity and transaction volume showed a downward trend.
• Throughout 2019, the number of active users, transaction counts, and transaction volume remained relatively stable in the first three quarters, with a slight decline. Significant changes occurred in the fourth quarter due to the launch of EIDOS on EOS, resulting in a more than fourfold increase in transaction counts on the launch day, severely impacting other dapps and users in the EOS ecosystem. For the impact of EIDOS on EOS, refer to the EOS section below.

Market Data

• Social was the only category with a decline in user volume. Besides social, gaming saw the most significant decrease in transaction volume, dropping by over 64% compared to 2018.

• By the end of 2019, only 199 out of the dapps launched in 2018 were still active. The one-year survival rate of dapps launched in 2018 was 38.2%, while the one-year survival rate of dapps launched in 2019 was only 31%.

• Gambling applications had the highest number of daily active users, with gambling users accounting for 50% of daily active users, representing nearly 40% of total active dapp users.

• In the graph, it can be seen that before November, EOS had the highest number of daily active users, with an average of 79,749 users per day, nearly 80,000. However, after the launch of EIDOS, the user count dropped rapidly to an average of 15,363 per day, a decrease of over 80%. After November, Tron became the blockchain with the most daily active users.

Ethereum (ETH)

• Nearly half of Ethereum's active dapp users used decentralized financial applications in 2019. 70% of the transaction volume involving native ETH tokens came from using decentralized exchanges and financial services such as lending.
• Ethereum remained the top choice for game developers. In 2019, Ethereum had over 200,000 game players, double the number of game players on EOS and Tron combined.

EOS

• Only 14,606 users were on-chain users (those participating in mining) for EIDOS, accounting for 2.8% of the total EOS dapp user volume but contributing to 85% of the total transaction count on the EOS chain.
• After the launch of EIDOS on November 1, the average number of active dapps decreased from 192 to 135.5, a drop of nearly 30%.
• Before November, EOS had the highest number of daily active users among blockchains, with an average of 79,749 users per day, nearly 80,000. However, after EIDOS launched, the user count dropped rapidly to an average of 15,363 per day, a decrease of over 80%.
• In Q4, the EOS ecosystem suffered significant losses, with the most active EOS dapps like EOSbet and Prospectors announcing moves to the newly launched Wax blockchain.

Steem

TRON (TRX)

• TRON had nearly 1 million active dapp users in 2019, second only to Ethereum. The number of newly launched dapps was also second only to ETH, solidifying its position as the second-largest dapp ecosystem.
• In the TRON ecosystem, gambling and high-risk applications continued to dominate, accounting for over 75% of all indicators.
• In Q4 of 2019, two significant events occurred within the TRON ecosystem, including Justin Sun's investment in the established exchange Poloniex and the acquisition of DLive, the world's largest decentralized live streaming platform, by BTT. According to Similarweb data, DLive had over 3 million monthly visits. Before the acquisition, Dlive on Lino's chain had over 400,000 active users, and it is expected that the TRON ecosystem will see greater diversity in users in 2020.

IOST

NEO

Further Reading

• Binance Research: DeFi has become one of the most crucial areas for Ethereum
• HODL: Profit or Loss? Review of the largest gains and losses in cryptocurrencies in 2019