The impact of Covid-19 on the Ethereum dapp ecosystem

1
(No Transcript)
2
April 2020 dapp ecosystem report

• Our April 2020 overview of the dapp ecosystem
  provides the first opportunity to see how the
  sector reacted to both the financial and the
  social shock triggered by the global lockdown
  caused by Covid-19 in mid-March.
• Looking at the three main blockchains, Ethereum,
  TRON, and EOS, activity during April 2020 rose
  compared to March.
• Overall activity across all tracked dapps on
  these blockchains was up 7, averaging 56,507
  daily active unique wallets.
• Ethereum was up 7, EOS up 31, and TRON down 7.
  
• However, taking a longer timeline and making a
  year-on-year comparison, only Ethereum was up
  61 with EOS down 55 and TRON down 21.

3
April 2020 dapp ecosystem report

• There was a different dynamic, however, when
  considering the value of tokens interacting with
  dapps. Ethereum dapps particularly DeFi and
  exchanges dropped significantly month-on-month,
  and this resulted in an overall decline in value
  across the three blockchains.
• Total USD value in April was 1.8 billion, down
  31 compared to March 2020, although up 30
  compared to April 2019.

4
Table of contents

• Key Takeaways
• Ethereum
• TRON
• EOS
• Conclusions

5
Key Takeaways

• Overall dapp activity was up 7 month-on-month in
  April 2020 to an average of 56,507 daily active
  unique wallets.
• Overall USD value dropped 31 month-on-month in
  April 2020 to 1.8 billion.
• Activity across Ethereum dapps rose 19 to an
  average of 22,285 daily active unique wallets.
• The EOS dapp ecosystem rebounded from their March
  low, up 75 to 24,173 daily active unique
  wallets.
• The TRON dapp ecosystem declined 25 to 17,151 to
  daily active unique wallets.
• In USD value terms, the biggest change was the
  hit to Ethereum DeFi and exchange dapps.
  Combined, these categories saw a 52 drop in
  value transacted compared to March 2020. This was
  a result of uncertainty arising from Covid-19.
• The biggest new dapp during April 2020 was
  Ethereum high-risk dapp HEX, which attracted 29
  million worth of value from an average of 1,433
  daily active unique wallets.

6
Ethereum dapp ecosystem

• The shock of the Covid-19 asset sell-off of 12
  March 2020 and its impact on the stability of
  certain DeFi dapps remains a heavy weight on the
  Ethereum dapp ecosystem.
• It depressed both daily activity, and in
  particular, the amount of token value interacting
  with dapps during the second half of March,
  interrupting what had been a very positive upward
  trend during the first two months of 2020.
• Yet, total daily activity across all Ethereum
  dapps has quickly rebounded, from a low of under
  17,000 daily active unique wallets in late March
  to a high of over 23,000 towards the end of
  April.

7
(No Transcript)
8
Ethereum Daily activity and value in 2020

• Daily activity was up 7 in April compared to
  March, also up 61 compared to April 2019.
• This increase was mainly driven by activity in
  two categories exchanges (up 11 compared to
  March 2020) and high-risk gambling dapps (up
  54).
• The rising popularity of exchanges in such a
  situation isnt surprising as users always trade
  more during price volatility, and this remains
  the situation for all cryptocurrencies at the
  current time.
• Daily activity through exchange protocols such as
  Uniswap and Kyber rose to an average of 4,219
  daily active unique wallets in April compared to
  March.

9
USD Value

• The USD value of token volumes through exchanges
  declined 34 to a daily average of just over 10
  million. Although in this context, we have to
  note thats similar to the recent drop in
  cryptocurrency values compared to the dollar so
  absolute trading in ETH terms remained broadly
  the same month-on-month.
• The biggest driver of new activity on the
  Ethereum blockchain during April was the
  high-risk dapp HEX. Although controversial in
  terms of its aims and methods. HEX ended April by
  regularly attracting more than 1,000 daily active
  unique wallets, and accounting for around half of
  the categorys total USD value during April at
  29 million.

10
(No Transcript)
11

• As a category, gambling and high-risk dapps
  increased their total value in April by 34,
  total spending from users during April of 58
  million.
• Gaming and marketplaces continued to be the most
  popular dapp category on Ethereum in April, with
  a daily average of 7,935 daily active unique
  wallets across all dapps, down 14 compared to
  March 2020.
• More generally, however, the DeFi category
  remains the most valuable on Ethereum. With a
  daily average of 21 million of value interacting
  with dapps, down 58 month-on-month. The total of
  daily active unique wallets across all DeFi dapps
  dropped 18 to an average of 1,757 daily across
  the month.
• And this resulted in an overall decline in terms
  of the amount of value interacting with all
  Ethereum dapps of 49 during April compared to
  March 2020.
• Hence while daily activity has quickly rebounded,
  its clear users are now less confident about
  investing large amounts of value into Ethereum
  dapps, in general, and DeFi dapps in particular.

12
TRON dapp ecosystem

• TRONs reputation as Las Vegas on the
  Blockchain continues.
• The gambling and high-risk category accounted for
  89 of the 109 million of total value accrued
  across all TRON dapps during April 2020, and 84
  of TRONs average daily activity of almost 20,000
  unique wallets.
• That stated the category continues to decline.
  Total value was down 7 compared to March 2020
  and down a massive 65 year-on-year. Daily
  activity was down 7 month-on-month and 18
  year-on-year.

13
(No Transcript)
14
TRON daily activity and value in 2020

• The exchange category on TRON has also contracted
  in terms of total volume, down 25 month-on-month
  for a total of 6 million worth of value. While
  activity across games and marketplace dapps
  declined by a significant level too down 47
  month-on-month.

15
(No Transcript)
16
TRON daily activity by category

• But there was some good news. Although DeFi
  remains a tiny category for TRON. The launch of
  Zethyr and Just has been a positive signal, which
  between them attracted almost 150 daily active
  unique wallets by the end of April. Accumulating
  a total value during the month of 3.5 million.

17
EOS dapp ecosystem

• Although down 55 percent in terms of total
  activity across all dapps year-on-year, there was
  some positive news for EOS. With its dapp
  ecosystem experiencing activity growth of 31
  month-on-month.
• Thats the first serious month of growth
  experienced since the disastrous launch of the
  EIDOS airdrop in November 2019. Which led to
  widespread and ongoing network congestion.
• Average activity in terms of daily active unique
  wallets on EOS during April was just shy of
  17,000. That compares to over 36,000 in April
  2019.

18
(No Transcript)
19
EOS Daily activity and value in 2020

• The vast majority of this growth came from
  gambling dapp Dice. Which experienced rapid
  expansion, ending the month with over 7,000 daily
  active unique wallets. Compared to around 500
  during March 2020.
• Overall, the gambling and high-risk category
  experienced activity growth of 48 in April
  compared to March 2020. Although that was still
  down 67 compared to April 2019.

20
(No Transcript)
21
EOS Daily activity by category

• Thanks to titles such as EOS Dynasty and
  Prospectors, the games and marketplace category
  also experienced growth, up 17 month-on-month.
  The exchange category continued what seems to be
  its long term activity decline, down 15
  month-on-month.
• Yet, despite this, token values across all EOS
  dapps rose.
• During April, 627 million worth of tokens was
  accrued by EOS dapps. With exchanges, gambling
  and high-risk, and games and marketplaces all up
  by at least 50 month-on-month. The Newdex
  exchange dapp and new game ChainZ accounted for a
  large proportion of this growth.

22
Conclusions

• Given its the most popular and valuable dapp
  ecosystem, and one in which decentralized finance
  dapps are particularly important. How users of
  Ethereum dapps reacted to the Covid-19 shock was
  always going to be the key trend during April.
• The month-on-month rise in daily activity shows
  that users continue to find these dapps useful,
  and continue to use them. Despite what has
  happened to the price of cryptocurrencies.
• However, the 49 decline in USD value during
  April does show there has been some loss of
  confidence. Particularly in dapps based around
  the value of cryptocurrencies that is the DeFi
  and exchange categories.
• As an aside, in this context, the explosive rise
  of the high-risk dapp HEX, and its get-rich-quick
  narrative, is no coincidence.

23
Conclusions

• More generally, it will be interesting to see how
  confidence around Ethereum dapps change in future
  months. Both as the DeFi category continues to
  evolve and structural improvements such as
  Ethereum 2.0 launch.
• As for the TRON and EOS dapp ecosystems. Whats
  surprising is the Covid-19 shock that so impacted
  Ethereum dapps appears to have had little effect.
  
• TRON has continued to drop, both in terms of its
  daily activity and value. On the other hand,
  after months of decline, EOS has finally
  rebounded. Interestingly, this hasnt been
  triggered by the launch of new dapps, rather it
  appears that the network congestion caused by the
  EIDOS airdrop has finally subsided.