DappRadar report 2024: the adoption of Web3 technology is rapidly growing
The well-known blockchain analysis platform DappRadar has recently published its “industry report 2024”, which shows significant changes in the crypto world.
User adoption for web3 technology has increased exponentially, highlighting the constant improvement of new decentralized applications (Dapps).
During the past year, the top blockchains have strengthened their dominance, while at the same time several other promising chains have emerged.
The DeFi sector has moved towards a general recovery, nearing the all-time high in the TVL metric.
The NFT market, on the other hand, represents the only niche still in crisis, having experienced significant reductions in sales volumes of non-fungible tokens.
Let’s see all the details below.
The DappRadar report shows a strong growth in 2024 for blockchain adoption
According to the latest report by DappRadar, 2024 was a year of strong advancement for the adoption of web3 technology.
In the last year, the sector of decentralized applications (Dapps) has experienced significant growth in terms of the number of active users.
In particular, the number of Unique Active Wallets (UAW) increased by 485% compared to the previous year, with a daily average of 24.6 million users. The category of blockchain products that reported the most traction in terms of usage was that of Dapp AI (marked as “other” in the chart).
Since Q1 this sector has exploded by 2,269%, highlighting the growing interest of investors in solutions based on intelligenza artificiale.
In second place we find DeFi applications, with an increase in activity of 532% which translates into a UAW of 7 million interactions per day.
This niche still represents the most significant today with a market share of 32% recorded in the last quarter of 2024.
The gaming sector also defended itself well, securing the last step of the podium with an increase in activity of 421%.
Finally, the NFT sector, driven by the strong narrative of airdrop, attracted more traffic compared to the previous year, growing by 412%.
DappRadar also shows the evolution in the number of transactions recorded for each category of the decentralized crypto ecosystem.
According to what emerged, the social dapps are those with the greatest growth, with a number of transactions increased by 455%.
The DeFi dapps stood out with an increase of 66% amounting to 8 billion tx, reflecting their dominance with a 54% share of the total on-chain operations.
Game transactions have decreased by 16% since the beginning of 2024 but have still maintained a high base of activity with 5 billion requests.
As for NFT, the numbers have remained more or less stable throughout the year, closing the last quarter with a -1%.
The networks and the most used dapps by users in 2024
The analysis by DappRadar also shows the changing trends in 2024 regarding the use of the major crypto networks.
During the last year, the layer-2 blockchain opBNB has emerged as the most chosen by users with a daily average of 3.88 million UAW.
Excellent numbers also for Near with 2.3 million and Solana with 1.99 million, while following we find Ronin, Polygon, Matchain, BNB Chain, Base, Nebula, and Arbitrum.
Very interesting to observe how despite the larger chains having captured a large portion of the market share, even the smaller ones have managed to stand out.
As reported by DappRadar, in 2024 many Dapp projects have stolen the spotlight from those that appeared dominant in 2023.
In the last year, the applications that have attracted more users have been those focused on gaming, with their constant presence in the Web3 rankings.
In particular, games represented 31.1% of all available dapps, followed by DeFi with 18.7%.
The most popular names have been Pixels, Hot Protocol, SyncSwap, World Of Dypians, Sweat Economy, Zeta Earn, CARV, MotoDEX, Off The Grid, and KAI Ching.
It is important to highlight how in the DappRadar databases there has been a 72% increase in the number of approved and verified applications, with a total of 5,138 dapps.
DappRadar highlights the strong recovery of the DeFi sector
The report by DappRadar also focuses on the remarkable recovery of the DeFi sector during 2024.
In the last year, this sector, still today a cornerstone of the entire blockchain industry, has recorded one of the most positive performances ever.
In detail, the total value locked (TVL) increased by 211%, closing the curtain with 214 billion dollars, just a step away from the all-time highs of 2021.
The factors that have most contributed to this expansion are to be found in those trends that have brought more activity and more capital from investors.
First of all, the hype for memecoin played a significant role in this context, causing a large increase in liquidity and volumes on DEX.
Then, from the second half of the year, we witnessed the emergence of AI agents that facilitated activities such as trading and governance, involving a large number of users.
It is likely that this innovation will be further explored and expanded in 2025, positioning AI as a fundamental component of the evolution of DeFi.
Another factor that has facilitated the flourishing of the decentralized finance sector has been the improvement of the macroeconomic outlook, with the FED contributing with a reduction in interest rates and an increase in market stimuli.
In a context of low rates, investors have turned in large numbers to lending platforms that offered yield opportunities more interesting than bonds
Finally, we cannot fail to mention the crucial role of Bitcoin, which with its significant chart performance has brought great confidence to the speculative crypto markets.
In 2024 BTC reached new all-time highs at 108,000 dollars, marking several milestones such as the introduction of spot ETFs.
According to DappRadar, the optimism we witnessed on Bitcoin in 2024 also spilled over to altcoins and the ecosystem of decentralized Dapps, leading to growing numbers.
The NFT sector is still in crisis
Although the analysis by DappRadar highlights a general growth in blockchain adoption, we cannot say the same for the NFT markets that are still in crisis.
Despite an increase in users who have used dapps of this type, we observe how sales of NFTs have remained at a very low level.
At the beginning of 2024, the trading volumes for non-fungible tokens seem to be heading towards a bull, but their momentum was short-lived.
Starting from the second half of the year, volumes dropped drastically to 1.5 billion dollars, closing the year with a rebound to 2.6 billion dollars.
The sales counts were lower compared to 2023, highlighting that NFTs were generally more expensive in 2024.
Compared to the previous year, sales lose 19% of their value, while they are down by 76 compared to 2022.
This made 2024 one of the years with the worst performance since 2020 in terms of both trading volumes and sales numbers.
