DeFi boom drives 1200% increase in DApp volume in 2020

DApp transaction volume has topped $270 billion so far in 2020, with 95% of this figure belonging to Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem, according to DappRadar. That’s an astonishing 1178% increase from last year’s total of $21 billion.

The blockchain data provider revealed the figures in its annual DApp Industry Report today, summarizing the highlights and failures of a record-breaking year for DApp-based economics.

The report noted that money has been flowing from BTC to ETH throughout the year, resulting in a rise in the price of ETH, from 0.018 BTC on Jan 1. 2020 to its current price of 0.028 BTC.

DappRadar speculates that attractive yields in DeFi were the “main trigger of Bitcoin flowing to Ethereum,” with Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC) and RenVM’s renBTC playing crucial roles in tapping Bitcoin’s vast reserves of liquidity for DApps.

Describing 2020 as the “year that DApps tried to grow at all costs,” the report found that just 10 DeFi DApps accounted for 87% of Ethereum’s total transaction volume.

Those 10 DApps totaled over one million active users in November, with the top three — DeFi Swap (Crypto.com), Uniswap, and Compound — dominating the total with 930,000 between them.

The report noted that the limitations of Ethereum became apparent this year as the network “effectively hit a wall in regards to scalability” with average gas prices several times higher than last year.

Congestion on the network accelerated the rise of competitors during the second half of the year, with DApp-friendly platforms like Binance Smart Chain, Tron, and Wax accounting for a rapidly increasing share of total DApp transaction value.

Also on the rise is the severity of hacks and exploits of unaudited or improperly audited smart contracts used by DeFi projects. DappRadar estimates that more than $120 million was stolen across 12 major incidents in 2020. It predicted that “insurance will be the next important DeFi ecosystem subcategory,” as a result.

DeFi boom drives 1200% increase in DApp volume in 2020: Report, Cointelegraph, Dec 18