The global dapp store, DappRadar, has released its 2022 end-of-year report on the blockchain, dapp, and cryptocurrency industries. One of the worst crypto winters ever occurred in 2022, resulting in a sharp decline in the value of most major cryptocurrencies and a spate of catastrophes, including the collapse of the FTX exchange. Nevertheless, the cryptocurrency sector managed to demonstrate its tenacity by making scores of amazing technical advances during the year.
The finest illustration of this was Ethereum’s Merge when the network successfully switched from a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism in order to dramatically lower its energy usage by 99.9%. Additionally, despite the terrible market circumstances, hundreds of developers put their heads down and carried on developing, which led to the emergence of numerous intriguing new projects. It may be stated that the industry has also learned from many of the difficult lessons it faced in 2022, as several projects showed incredible tenacity even as the ground gave way under them.
The dapp industry as a whole had a 50% gain in daily unique active wallets, solidifying the dUAW at 2.37 million, up from only 1.58 million dUAW at the end of 2021, according to DappRadar’s 2022 Yearly Report. Despite this growth, it seems that industry activity has consolidated this year and has been declining since the year’s start. The sector has become more consolidated as a result of consumers’ and companies’ ongoing embrace of blockchain technology and the growing backing from investors. This demonstrates the industry’s resiliency and development.
The major issues for the crypto sector, according to the report, were a substantial reduction in the Total Value Locked in DeFi, which plunged 73.97% to barely $55 billion in December, and a dramatic fall in cryptocurrency values throughout the year.
Despite this, the DeFi sector is still thriving. Ethereum continues to lead the pack with $32.12 billion in TVL, down 74.56%, while BNB Chain comes in second with $6.5 billion TVL, down 62.5%. The least impacted blockchains, including scaling solutions like Arbitrum, whose TVL dropped by only 12.07% to $1.74 billion, were also highlighted by DappRadar. However, Optimism’s TVL increased by a stunning 127.6% to reach $669 million.
There were other encouraging developments in the NFT industry as well, with trading volume increasing marginally by 0.41% from a year ago despite the drop in token values. Additionally, from a year ago, the number of unique NFT traders increased by an astounding 876.89% to reach more than 10.6 million. Similarly to that, overall sales increased by 10.16 percent to 68.35 million.
The advent of several new markets over the last year has shocked the NFT industry. Of those newcomers, X2Y2, which generated more than $1.5 billion in yearly trade volume to rank among the top 10 markets in the sector, was by far the most outstanding. Blur is another up-and-coming competitor; it just began operations in October but has already generated more than $205 million in trade volume, enough for tenth position globally.
Additional evidence of resiliency comes from the blockchain gaming sector, which in 2022 is the biggest section overall and 49% of all dapp activity. At the conclusion of the year, the industry had 7.4 billion total transactions and an average of 1.15 million dUAW. Splinterlands continued to lead the pack of games with 217,914 monthly UAW, an increase of 85.78% from a year earlier. Alien Worlds held onto the second position despite a decline in mUAWs to 178,118, a drop of 3.67%.
Of course, it would be incorrect to suggest that all was smooth sailing for the cryptocurrency sector in 2022, as DappRadar’s report emphasizes the persistent frequency of cyber assaults and vulnerabilities that caused losses of billions of dollars. DappRadar noted 312 crypto assaults that cost over $48 billion in lost crypto assets in 2022. The Terra Luna Scandal, which indirectly caused losses of more than $40 billion, was by far the greatest. DappRadar discovered that the great majority of attacks, totaling $44.71 billion in damages, targeted centralized exchanges. With the Terra Luna incident excluded, the number of frauds is quite modest, with losses reaching 345 million dollars every month and a median loss per hack of 283,000 dollars.
All things considered, the blockchain sector had a difficult year, but it also showed maturity and perseverance. Perhaps, the report’s most important finding is that the usage of blockchain technology grew during 2022, which implies that the industry’s future is still promising despite its present difficulties.
