Ethereum dapps power ahead in May with 25% rise in value
High gas fees saw Ethereum dapps daily activity drop 14% month-on-month but volumes through DeFi and exchange dapps remained strong with total value during May up 25% to $1.2 billion.
The biggest activity influence on dapps running on the Ethereum blockchain during May 2020 was the continuing high price of gas. The result of elevated activity arising from the use of the Tether stablecoin on Ethereum, combined with traffic from four high-risk dapps, this trend started in mid-April and shows no sign of ending.
Obviously, rising gas prices make every Ethereum transaction more expensive, hence reducing dapp usage.
However, the pain wasn’t felt equally across all dapp categories. While daily activity across DeFi and DEX dapps was down by 19% and 14% respectively comparing May to April, gambling was down 26%, while activity across games and marketplaces was down a massive 61%.
Games take a hit
This is significant as gaming is generally the most popular category on Ethereum. For example, it accounted for 42% of daily activity across Ethereum dapps in April, but this declined to 23% in May.
Overall, compared to April, activity across all Ethereum dapps during May was down 14% to an average of 16,191 daily active unique wallets.
Conversely, the total value of ETH and ERC20 tokens interacting with Ethereum dapps wasn’t impacted by higher gas prices at all. Month-on-month, the total value rose 25%, from $920 million in April to $1.2 billion in May.
DeFi powering the dapp ecosystem
DeFi dapps remain the most important category in this respect, accounting for 60% of May’s value total, with exchanges in second place, accounting for 24%.
Six dapps in these two categories each accounted for more than $100 million worth of value during May: MakerDAO; Compound; dYdX; Uniswap; Kyber; and 1inch.
Gambling and high-risk dapps increased their share of the total value from 6 to 13%, thanks mainly to activity on the Hex high-risk dapp, which accounted for $103 million worth of value.
Conclusion
In the case of Ethereum, high gas prices hit price-sensitive activity such as gaming hard while leaving the high-value activity of DeFi and exchanges untouched and growing their value proposition.
Need more? Read the full May 2020 report covering the 6 main blockchains tracked by DappRadar: Ethereum, TRON, EOS, WAX, Hive, and Steem.
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