2019 Dapp Industry Review: Ethereum User Growth Up by 118%

The research report by Dapp data platform DappRadar recently reviewed the development of the Dapp industry this year. It mentioned that Ethereum remains the only blockchain that has successfully developed Dapps in four major categories (DeFi, exchanges, games, gambling) so far. On the other hand, its main competitors EOS and TRON are not as optimistic, as some issues still exist with their touted transaction throughput and other technical advantages.

Ethereum

DappRadar pointed out that Ethereum, not only the first blockchain to develop smart contracts, has shown impressive performance this year in terms of the number of dapps deployed, depth of development community, users, and value growth.

In terms of overall data for this year, Ethereum's dapp ecosystem saw a 118% increase in daily active addresses and a 166% increase in daily on-chain value, making it a very successful year, with explosive growth in the DeFi sector attracting everyone's attention.

The growth of Ethereum's dapp users was most significant in the first half of the year, especially as the surge in Ether prices drove activity in exchange dapps, reaching nearly 20,000 daily active users in May. Although the increase in gas fees in September led to a drop in daily transactions to below 9,000, it quickly rebounded and hit a new high of 22,500 in early December.

Furthermore, DappRadar began tracking ERC20 tokens in the second half of the year, and in just six months, Ether and ERC20 tokens created a value of $6.9 billion. Based on this, the total value created by the Ethereum dapp ecosystem this year exceeded $10 billion.

The detailed changes in the second half of the year are as follows:

• Exchange category accounted for 50% of the total value, down 40%
• DeFi accounted for 45% of the total value, an increase of nearly 1,990%
• Gambling and high-risk activities accounted for 3% of the total value, down 71%
• Games category accounted for less than 1% of the total value, an increase of 87%

DeFi once again stood out as a category, experiencing remarkable growth, with daily value increasing from around $2.5 million to nearly $50 million. The differences in daily users and total value among the categories can be clearly identified from the chart below:

• DeFi has the fewest users but the highest value
• Exchange users are more, but daily value is lower
• Games and gambling categories have the highest daily activity, but generate minimal value

Overall, Ethereum did not meet everyone's expectations in 2019, but it still made very good progress.

EOS

Like most cryptocurrencies, EOS saw a steady price increase this year, reaching a high of $8.59 in early June, with its dapp daily unique addresses also hitting a yearly high of 54,000 in that month. It ended the year just above $2 after a continuous decline.

The worst thing for EOS this year was the issuance of the EIDOS token airdrop. DappRadar criticized the project as a "prank-like experiment" where users transferred massively to EIDOS accounts to claim the airdrop, causing a disastrous congestion on the EOS network.

Most EOS users were unable to confirm their transactions, leading to a halt in EOS dapp usage. The total daily unique addresses' activity plummeted from 44,000 to 13,000 within a few days, and daily active users have since remained at a low level.

In addition to the decline in daily activity, the daily value of the EOS dapp ecosystem (calculated per daily input) dropped by 92% throughout the year.

For the EOS dapp ecosystem, 2019 was a challenging year, and with the loss of many users, the outlook for next year is not so optimistic. It is worth noting that the social media platform "Voice" based on EOS is set to release its Beta version on February 14 next year, which may bring a turning point for its weak user activity.

TRON

After TRON CEO Justin Sun successfully bid $4.6 million for a charity lunch with legendary investor Warren Buffett, the TRX token price reached a high of $0.038705 in June this year.

However, after the charity lunch was abruptly canceled, the TRX price dropped by 26%, and the activity on the TRON dapp ecosystem decreased from over 30,000 daily active users to 10,000.

The on-chain transaction volume reached $100 million in March this year, but plummeted to below $10 million in December. DappRadar pointed out:

TRON's biggest problem may be its failure to expand beyond gambling-related dapps. 90% of TRON's audience is based on gambling dapps, 10% on exchanges, and only 0.1% through gaming interactions.

The daily transaction volume for TRON is barely sustained by one dapp. Its gambling dapp WINk accounted for about 72% of the total volume throughout the year, dominating 85% of the total value in the TRON dapp ecosystem in the second half of the year.

Overall, this year, the explosive growth of decentralized finance DeFi has driven the dapp industry. The trading volume of ERC20 tokens on the Ethereum blockchain has surpassed that of Ether itself, indicating the growing utility of Ethereum as a dapp platform and marking a milestone.

While Ethereum has performed prominently this year, the blockchain industry is rapidly expanding, and more public chain competitors are expected to emerge next year. Ethereum is also in the transition phase to a proof-of-stake mechanism, and whether it can maintain its leading position in the dapp arena remains to be seen.

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