The number of decentralized application (dApp) users grew 124% last year. Web3 apps on blockchain networks Near, Klaytn, and Arbitrum showed the highest growth.
During 2023, an average of 4.2 million unique active wallets (UAW) interacted with decentralized apps on a daily basis, more than doubling from 2022. Such data is provided in the DappRadar report.
The greatest growth was shown by applications related to non-fungible tokens (NFT) — the number of their users grew by 166% over the year, reaching 671,100 daily UAWs. Decentralized finance (DeFi) is in second place in terms of growth rate — its growth was 112% with 934,300 daily UAWs. The SocialFi sphere completes the top three, which rose by 29% with 250,700 daily UAWs — the key protocols in this sector were Friend.tech, Lens Protocol, and Galxe.
The GameFi sector was leading the way in terms of activity among dApps — average daily users reached 1.1 million UAWs by the end of the year. Blockchain gaming accounted for 34% of all decentralized app users in 2023.
The DeFi sector was the leader in transaction volume, with a 537% increase from 2022. The total value locked (TVL) on DeFi protocols rose 77% to $103 billion in 2023.
Growth leaders by number of dApps users among blockchain networks are:
- Near — 1,902%;
- Klaytn — 1,099%;
- Arbitrum — 624%.
Blockchain networks leading the decline in the number of dApps users are:
- Harmony — 96%;
- Solana — 76%;
- Hive — 68%.
One of the key trends for 2023, according to DappRadar analysts, is the decline in demand for Layer 1 (L1) blockchain networks, which has arisen due to the slowdown in on-chain activity seen over the past few years. Against this background, various L1 projects relaunched as side-chains or Layer 2 (L2) networks in the Ethereum ecosystem — active development of this segment was noted by analysts in Q1 2023.
