Dapp Industry Report: January 2021
The report presents a snapshot of the decentralized‑application (dapp) landscape in January 2021, emphasizing Ethereum’s continued dominance while highlighting the rapid emergence of competing blockchains and the explosive growth of the NFT sector. Across the month, Ethereum generated more than $112 billion in transaction volume—86 % of total blockchain activity—and supported roughly 72 000 daily active wallets (30 % of the market). Its DeFi ecosystem accounted for 99 % of this activity, with Uniswap and 1inch leading in unique wallet usage, while total value locked (TVL) on Ethereum surpassed $30 billion, driven by token price surges and a rise in aTVL to $14 billion.
NFT activity on Ethereum expanded tenfold, from $3 million in December to $33 million in January, propelled by CryptoPunks and the newly launched Hashmasks, which quickly became the top collectible dapp. Meanwhile, the Flow blockchain’s NBA Top Shot achieved over $40 million in sales, overtaking Ethereum‑based NFTs to become the leading NFT platform. Binance Smart Chain (BSC) recorded its strongest month, exceeding $15 billion in transaction volume and generating the highest number of unique active wallets on its network, largely through Venus and PancakeSwap. Wax’s gaming dapp Alien Worlds also posted rapid growth, reaching 8 000 daily active wallets.
Scalability constraints on Ethereum continued to inflate gas fees, prompting migration to layer‑2 solutions such as Matic and to alternative layer‑1 chains. The report’s data derive from DappRadar analytics, covering transaction volumes, wallet activity, and TVL across major protocols (Ethereum, BSC, Wax, Flow, EOS, Tron, and emerging networks like Polkadot and Solana) for the calendar month of January 2021. Overall, the findings indicate a blockchain ecosystem transitioning from DeFi‑centric growth to a new wave dominated by high‑value NFT dapps and diversified cross‑chain activity.
