According to a new industry report published by DappRadar, the number of users engaging in decentralized applications, or DApps, grew by 396% year on year to 2.4 million every year. This is only 5.8% less than the same user activity level seen in the fourth quarter of 2021.
The overall growth was impressive, considering that the cryptocurrency sector saw a short-term bear market during the quarter, as well as decentralized finance, or DeFi, experiencing $1.19 billion in hacks and exploits.
Ronin and Wormhole were two of the worst affected token bridge protocols. Last month, Axi Infinity’s Ronin Bridge was breached for more than $600 million after an attacker hacked into private keys to fake withdrawals. Meanwhile, Wormhole Protocol lost $321 million through a mining exploit in February. However, in a heroic move, venture capital firm Jump Crypto dug into its own wallet and recoup the lost funds.
Furthermore, DappRadar employees wrote:
“The first quarter of 2022 had its ups and downs but was tainted by the war in Ukraine. It was one of the biggest events since the 2008 global financial crisis that shook world markets and negatively impacted the industry.”
Number of unique active wallets interacting with DApps , Source: DappRadar
Gaming dApps accounted for over 50% of all user activity in the first quarter of 2022. Additionally, the non-fungible token, or NFT, generated $12 billion in trades despite warnings of a bubble. In terms of total value locked in DeFi, Ethereum (ETH) once again topped the list with $127 billion, followed by Terra Luna (Luna) with $29 billion and BNB Chain with $13 billion.
