Written by: Modesta Jurgelevičienė, Ian Kane, from DappRadar
Translation: wjw, WePiggy community volunteer
Overall, 2020 is indeed an incredible year.
At the beginning of 2020, DeFi became the driving force of the blockchain industry. When other blockchain projects are still lacking developer support and interoperability, Ethereum is already ready for growth. However, this growth is not without signs.
In mid-March, the new coronavirus pneumonia swept the world, and the price of traditional markets and cryptocurrencies fell sharply, which seriously affected MakerDAO’s DAI stable currency anchoring the exchange rate of 1 US dollar. MakerDAO nearly collapsed. Fortunately, the power of the community allowed it to continue.
The second key trend in 2020 is profit farming. The COMP token successfully released by Compound , together with its incentive model, proved to be an excellent user acquisition channel.
Various DeFi DApps began to quickly release tokens and incentive activities, while other developers built meta-protocols to maximize revenue. At the same time, other categories such as NFT collectibles and games have also adopted the model.
In general, most of the tokens released in DeFi and NFT DApp are governance tokens. First, it allows the community to participate in DApp decision-making. Second, the governance mechanism is another big step towards real decentralization.
The hype surrounding profit farming has also exposed many problems. One of them is user retention. Uniswap ‘s leading position was shaken by the launch of the so-called vampire DApp- SushiSwap , which proved that user retention is one of the keys to success.
The increase in activity in the Ethereum network has brought another problem-scalability. Expensive gas fees suppressed low-value DApp activities, especially games, which dropped by more than 90% between May and August. In turn, this also creates opportunities for Ethereum-centric two-layer network solutions and competitors’ one-layer blockchains.
Attacks and exploits for smart contracts have also proved that the industry is still in the experimental stage, and insurance products have been produced. Insurance may become an important part of the healthy development of the industry.
Finally, protocols and developers began to realize that working in isolation might not be the best way to fight competition. Some important mergers occurred at the end of the year, and this merger looks likely to be the main trend in 2021.
Note: DeFi ecosystem refers to DApps such as decentralized finance and decentralized exchanges; NFT market refers to DApps such as collectibles and trading markets.
Point
- 2020 is a record year for the blockchain industry. DApp transaction volume exceeds 270 billion U.S. dollars, 95% of which comes from the DeFi ecosystem on Ethereum.
- The top Ethereum DApp tracked by DAppRadar, the total locked-up volume (TVL) and adjusted total locked-up volume (aTVL) reached the historical high of 13 billion US dollars and 11 billion US dollars in 2020, respectively.
- In 2020, a total of 238 new DeFi DApps will be submitted to DAppRadar. 106 of them (accounting for 45%) run on the Ethereum chain.
- In 2020, a total of 1,353 new DApps will be submitted to DAppRadar. Of these, 424 (32%) run on the Ethereum chain.
- The scalability issue is not the only challenge facing 2020. The increasing usage of DApps has led to a variety of exploitable vulnerabilities and hacking attacks, with losses exceeding 120 million U.S. dollars.
- After the implementation of the income farming incentive plan, the number of active wallets in the NFT market Rarible soared from about 200 to more than 1,500 in September 2020.
- The NFT market has shown great potential in 2020, with multiple transactions worth more than $100,000.
- DeFi DApp has established the true foundation of the road to decentralization by distributing governance tokens in 2020, although the actual implementation plan of the decentralization concept has yet to be confirmed.
2020 challenges
Scalability issues
In 2019, more and more new DApps were launched on all blockchains. The most important are DeFi, NFT and game DApp, which promote the 2020 event. As expected, most of the activities are concentrated on the Ethereum blockchain.
2020 is the year when DApp tries to develop at all costs. Of course, this has brought many consequences, such as the increase in Ethereum gas fees.
The first wave of gas price increase was attributed to the increased use of the Tether USDT stablecoin on Ethereum, coupled with several high-risk DApp activities, resulting in the network being flooded with spam transactions.
The second wave goes hand-in-hand with the latest trend of 2020-income farming. During the peak transaction period, the average transaction cost exceeds $50.
Overall, Ethereum has repeatedly touched the ceiling of scalability. The arrival of Ethereum 2.0 is not only vital to ensuring the leadership of Ethereum, but also important to its survival.
Source: Etherscan.io Gas Price
Increasing competition
In 2019, the main contenders for Ethereum’s dominance are EOS and TRON. Not only these protocols have generated a lot of activity in 2020, but other projects such as Polkadot and Binance Smart Chain (BSC) have also risen rapidly.
Source: DAppRadar
There is no doubt that with the explosive growth of the DeFi category, both EOS and TRON are catching up in 2020. Replicas of Ethereum DApps were established on TRON, and these DApps began to contribute a lot of activity. In the TRON DeFi ecosystem, more than 17,000 independent wallets are active every day.
EOS is a bit slower, and the current activity is dominated by DApps in other categories besides DeFi. Nevertheless, the EOS DeFi ecosystem still has about 4,000 independent wallets active every day.
In 2020, more Ethereum competitors will go online. For example, Cardano, Polkadot, Binance Smartchain, Cosmos, Near and Flow. Although so far, only a few projects in these blockchains are active.
In terms of products launched, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) is in a leading position. Within three months of launching the top BSC DApp, there were approximately 10,000 independent active wallets per day.
Leading the BSC development project is PancakeSwap, which has 3,300 daily active wallets. Although this number is still eight times lower than Ethereum’s top DEX Uniswap, PancakeSwap already has more active users than other top Ethereum DApps such as SushiSwap or Balancer.
Source: DAppRadar
Other projects are still in the deployment phase, and Cardano recently announced that it will release its first DeFi project, Liqwid. Cardano has not yet deployed smart contracts, but according to CoinGecko, as the top ten projects by market value, Cardano is an important competitor.
Although no project has been launched yet, Polkadot is also on the cusp of launching an ecosystem against Ethereum. The agreement has attracted media attention and new investors, such as KR1 and RockX, and RockX has launched a $20 million investment plan to support projects on Polkadot.
Another Ethereum challenger is Cosmos, which is creating an independent blockchain decentralized network on the Tendermint consensus layer. Although Cosmos is still in the early stages of deployment, projects such as Binance Chain, OKChain, and Akash are already using Cosmos.
Flow is another competitor that is more compatible with DApp games, and is expected to become a fast, decentralized and developer-friendly blockchain. So far, some of the world’s top developers and big brands have joined them, such as NBA Top Shot, Animoca and Ubisoft.
Source: Coingecko
Smart contract vulnerabilities
Although various indicators of DeFi set records in 2020, facts have proved that DeFi is still a very fragile ecosystem. Especially in unaudited smart contracts, there are a variety of attackable and exploitable vulnerabilities and program failures, and even audited smart contracts have problems.
As one of the most important DApps, MakerDAO has withstood a severe test in 2020. In mid-March, the rapid decline in the price of digital currencies seriously affected MakerDAO’s DAI stable currency anchoring the exchange rate of $1, and the subsequent collapse of MakerDAO continued in the maintenance of the community.
YAM is a project that has attracted a lot of attention within 24 hours after its launch. The project collapsed rapidly within two days, and the YAM token price plummeted from a high of $200 to $1.04.
The overall increase in DApp usage in 2020 has also led to more and more attacks and exploits. By the end of 2020, the total value of such incidents has exceeded 120 million US dollars, which makes insurance products an increasingly important topic in this field. We predict that insurance products may become a key and necessary part of the healthy development of the DeFi industry.
Centralized and decentralized insurance solutions are emerging. For example, yInsure’s NFT insurance token has attracted widespread attention as a novel trading product. The industry seems to be ready to further study insurance options in 2021.
Source: Rarible
Another interesting example is the audit company CertiK. CertiK has developed a membership service that enables participants to be compensated if they are attacked.
The increasing deployment and attention of such projects proves to a certain extent that insurance will become the next important subcategory of the DeFi ecosystem.
High returns come with high risks
In 2020, people’s interest in DeFi applications and income farming is increasing.
Many DApps have fairly high yields, but high returns are accompanied by risks.
There were many cases during this year, where users lost a lot of money in pure scams and frauds. In addition, although DApps that contain certain risks are classified as high-risk DApps on DAppRadar, we are beginning to see that the classification of risk levels is becoming blurred.
The HEX project was launched in December 2019 and is led by long-time Bitcoin supremacist (also known as Bitcoinist) Richard Smart.
The uniqueness of HEX is that it is not a high-risk DApp for drumming or a typical pyramid MLM. Most high-risk DApps can only survive for less than three months, and it has been active for more than half a year.
Unlike other high-risk DApps, HEX combines its tokens with a long-term high-return pledge mechanism and powerful membership marketing, which is more like an ambitious attempt to guide a new cryptocurrency and community practice. The user exchanges ETH as the principal for HEX tokens, and receives both the local currency and the interest paid by HEX. Therefore, the high risk factors of HEX are limited to the price fluctuation range of HEX tokens. The price of HEX tokens fluctuates greatly during 2020. Although the current value does not exceed US$0.0044, an amazing growth of 2100% has occurred in 2020.
Source: Coingecko
User retention
The rapid growth in 2020 also highlights the importance of user retention from another perspective. As mentioned earlier, in the long run, the number of independent active wallets interacting with DApp smart contracts is a key indicator of success.
Uniswap will undoubtedly be the leader in the decentralized exchange (DEX) category in 2020. However, another project planned a sneak attack, which is SushiSwap. The release of such a so-called vampire DApp made headlines in mid-2020. In essence, Sushiswap uses incentives to move users away from Uniswap liquidity.
The vampire strategy was successfully implemented for several weeks, but in mid-September, Uniswap fought back by airdropping UNI governance tokens to its current and past users. While we discovered that Uniswap has restored its leadership, we also recognize that this incident illustrates the vulnerability of user retention and is easily driven by profit temptation.
Source: DAppRadar
In 2020, the concept of development at all costs has brought exciting and challenging problems for the entire blockchain industry and various DApps. However, through people’s ambition and perseverance, the industry has found a path to success and has witnessed many historical data at the highest level.
Development at any cost
Judging from all the indicators of the 16 blockchains tracked by DAppRadar, the blockchain industry has achieved tremendous growth in 2020.
The number of independent active wallets increased by 466%, from 58,000 at the end of 2019 to around 200,000 at the end of 2020. Transaction volume increased by 1178%, from 21 billion USD in 2019 to 270 billion USD in 2020.
On the other hand, the growth is highly concentrated in a few DApps. The top ten DeFi DApps account for 87% of Ethereum’s transaction volume, with a transaction volume of $223 billion in 2020.
Source: DAppRadar
Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem is the main driving force of the total locked-up volume (TVL). Together with the adjusted total locked-up volume (aTVL) tracked by DAppRadar, it will reach the highest level in history in 2020, at 13 billion USD and 11 billion USD respectively. Dollar.
95% of transaction volume growth comes from Ethereum’s DeFi application
DeFi is the main driving force for the growth of DApp in 2020, with total locked-up volume (TVL), number of independent active wallets (UAW) and transaction volume being the main indicators. This is also a hot topic on news channels and social networks. The peak of interest for discussion will appear in April 2020 and September 2020.
Source: Google Trends
Ethereum’s ecosystem is the first to develop and mature, and competitors are working hard to catch up.
Source: DAppRadar
TRON is the first blockchain to catch up with the DeFi ecosystem. So far, there are more than 70 DApps on the TRON network, and most of the activities are concentrated in the top three. There are more than 5,000 independent wallets using USWAP, JustSwap and UME every day, accounting for 70% of the total activity of the entire DeFi ecosystem.
Source: DAppRadar
Binance Smart Chain (BSC) is another rapidly popular protocol, generating approximately $3 billion in transaction volume within a few months of its release. This is still a relatively small number compared to Ethereum’s annual figure (US$256 billion), but close to the figures of TRON (US$3.6 billion) and EOS (US$6.5 billion).
Source: DAppRadar
One of the main driving forces for the growth of Ethereum’s DeFi ecosystem in 2020 is the hype surrounding revenue farming and governance token distribution.
Profit farming promotes DeFi ecological activities
Revenue farming was first introduced by Synthetix, and Compound and COMP tokens made it popular. It can be said that the release of COMP governance token by Compound triggered a chain reaction across the industry.
Balancer and Curve also followed the trend, with key indicators once rising. Not only that, the growth of key indicators reached the highest point when the SushiSwap project was launched. The data points of the peak number of independent active wallets and project launch are provided below:
- COMP: Within a week, UAW (number of independent active wallets) increased from 300 to 2,700 (+800%).
- BAL: Within a week, UAW increased from 200 to 650 (+225%).
- CRV: Within a week, UAW increased from 1000 to 4,100 (+310%).
- Sushi: Within one week, UAW increased from 10 to 7,100 (+70,900%).
- UNI: In 24 hours, UAW increased from 30,000 to 71,000 (+137%).
At the end of August, the release of SushiSwap shook the DeFi ecosystem. The project started on the basis of Uniswap with the purpose of migrating its liquidity. In return, in order to motivate users to migrate, the agreement distributed Sushi tokens. By September 2020, the transaction volume of this project has exceeded USD 6 billion.
Uniswap launched a counterattack by airdropping 400 UNI to all wallets that have interacted with Uniswap in the past and currently, so as to distribute 400 UNI tokens to each user. A few hours after the airdrop, the value of these tokens is approximately $1200.
As a result, Uniswap’s transaction volume reached its peak in an instant, creating a transaction volume of 33 billion US dollars in September, accounting for almost 60% of the total transaction volume.
Source: DAppRadar
In general, the issuance of revenue farming and governance tokens provides a template for other DApps, enabling other projects to begin to understand how to incentivize blockchain users.
The road to true decentralization
All the above DApps have issued governance tokens in 2020. In theory, holders can vote to distribute the fees collected by the platform as income to themselves.
Curve is one of the first DApps to distribute dividends to token holders, and the development of other platforms is equally interesting. Recently, both the Compound and Uniswap communities voted on a proposal that will enable the ecosystem to use governance tokens as project funds to pay contributors. If achieved, this will be a key step in two important projects on the road to decentralization of the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem.
Source: Compound Proposal 030: COMP Contributor Grants
Rising yields incentivize Bitcoin to flow into Ethereum
In terms of market value, Bitcoin is still the world’s number one cryptocurrency, and it also represents a large amount of liquidity that has not entered the Ethereum DeFi field before.
The smooth integration of the two is an important step to include Bitcoin holders in the activities of the Ethereum network.
Rising yields are the main incentive for Bitcoin to flow into Ethereum. wBTC is the leading provider of tokenized Bitcoin on Ethereum, and there are more cases.
Although custodial-based solutions are leading the competition, non-custodial solutions have been raising funds and launching. renBTC is currently the leading non-custodial tokenized Bitcoin on Ethereum.
Source: DAppRadar
Accurately measure DeFi activity-aTVL
In early 2020, a new indicator became a standard method for measuring the growth of the DeFi ecosystem. Total locked-up volume (TVL) is the main indicator of growth, usually in US dollars, used to measure the value of assets locked in DApp smart contracts. Usually assets are locked to provide liquidity for activities.
Source: DAppRadar
The total locked position is usually quoted in US dollars. Therefore, the price of locked assets in the smart contract has a greater impact on the total locked position than the number of locked assets.
In 2020, DAppRadar proposed a new indicator: Adjust the lock-up amount (aTVL), which effectively solved this problem. In the case of rising prices of Ethereum and other altcoins, adjusting the lock-up amount will reflect the true growth of the assets stored in the smart contract.
In addition, the Independent Active Wallet (UAW) indicator can show whether the activity is driven by multiple users or a single whale. In addition, it can show whether there is broader community involvement.
Data collected on December 17, 2020, source: DAppRadar
DeFi team merger
Another important trend begins to emerge at the end of 2020. Several statements announced that some projects were planning to merge. For example, Yearn Finance will cooperate or merge with at least five different DeFi projects in 2020: SushiSwap, Akropolis, Cover, Cream and Pickle.
Source: DAppRadar
Each project specializes in a specific direction, but each project has encountered many difficulties in the face of competition. Many of these mergers are more like a developer acquisition strategy, and Year has selected development teams that may be in trouble.
Mergers are very common in traditional markets, and this is the first merger completed in a decentralized market. The merger may provide other DApps with examples and motivation to follow trends.
Overall, the DeFi ecosystem has made significant progress in recent years, and this result in 2020 is particularly outstanding. In addition, it can be said that the DeFi ecosystem has created a blueprint for the development of other categories. It is expected that DeFi will soon promote the further value transfer of the NFT market and DApp games.
Foundation of growth
DeFi is the underlying structure of the encrypted economy infrastructure, and with it, NFT and the game industry have begun to adopt the DeFi model for development. Rarible is the first NFT platform to motivate users and provide liquidity mining by introducing the governance token RARI, and the game uses DeFi to create value and liquidity for the game earning model.
Source: DAppRadar
NFT drives DApp growth in 2020
In the past few months, the hype around non-fungible tokens (NFTs) around art and games has begun to grow. There are many tokens in 2020 that provide different functions, such as governance or applications, but all work towards the same goal of user acquisition.
Source: DAppRadar
Rarible is the first NFT trading platform that provides token farming, and it quickly became widely accepted by users, increasing the platform’s active indicators.
During peak hours, Rarible’s daily trading volume exceeds 1.5 million USD. This number has dropped recently, mainly due to the introduction of platform fees, which helps reduce the amount of scalping transactions and keep users honest.
Source: DAppRadar
Another example of governance tokens is the most popular DApp game Axie Infinity. Axie announced the launch of the ANX token, which inevitably affected the activities of the game and the Axie Marketplace trading platform. NFT sales immediately soared, and the number of independent active wallets increased to about 800 by the end of the year.
On the other hand, OpenSea, one of the most famous NFT markets, has not yet distributed tokens. Nevertheless, the platform proved that even after a temporary drop in user loyalty, it can attract and retain users quite quickly, which may depend on the user experience and the features that OpenSea already has.
By 2020, the interconnection between DeFi and NFT will become more apparent. Recently, a platform called NFTfi allows users to lock NFT as collateral to borrow cryptocurrency.
For example, it is now possible to use NFT artwork, a piece of land in Axie Infinity, or CryptoPunk collections as collateral for borrowing money.
Source: NFTfi.com
NFT sales show real potential
NFT transaction volume is still relatively small, approaching $63 million in 2020, accounting for 0.02% of the total transaction volume of all categories. Recently, NFT sales in DApps such as Sorare and CryptoPunks have demonstrated the true potential of this category.
Sorare hopes to become a leader in digital sports collectibles. The Kylian Mbappé card recently sold for 116.15 ETH, which is more than $64,000, making it one of the most expensive collectible transactions in 2020.
Source: DAppRadar (ETH/USD exchange rate is taken from the value on the day of the transaction)
It can be said that CryptoPunks started this trend 3 years ago by introducing unique and limited NFT artworks. According to Larva Labs’ top 60 sales rankings, the sales volume of CryptoPunks during the operation period reached an amazing amount, and the price of each CryptoPunk was 21 to 185 ETH.
Interestingly, there have been two large transactions in the past two months and two of the Punks were sold for more than $63,000 and $71,000 respectively.
Source: DAppRadar (ETH/USD exchange rate is taken from the value on the day of the transaction)
Axie Infinity’s NFT completed several large transactions in 2020. Looking at the top ten sales in 2020, two of them exceeded US$130,000 and US$97,000 respectively. In general, Axie is the leader in NFT large transactions in 2020.
WAX establishes NFT hub
Ethereum is not the only blockchain experiencing a surge in NFT popularity. Since its establishment, WAX Blockchain has always focused on the delivery of NFT content for brand cooperation. On WAX, the top five major NFT sales were sold out in record time and NFTs were delivered to thousands of users.
Source: DAppRadar (ETH/USD exchange rate is taken from the value on the day of the transaction)
In 2020, WAX not only released some very successful NFT projects, such as the iconic Garbage Pail Kids Topps card, but also introduced a new token economic model to the blockchain industry.
In short, WAX hopes to inject the economic value created on WAX into the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem. To be more precise, use WAX’s best function-creating, selling and trading NFTs, and link the value generated with Ethereum.
Although the NFT market on WAX is still relatively small, their status and professionalism in specific categories are likely to become another major incentive for future industry growth.
game
2020 is a very challenging year for DApp games, especially for games running on the Ethereum chain.
At the beginning of 2020, gaming is the largest category in terms of the number of independent active wallets. Around 10,000 independent active wallets appeared during the heyday. Due to the demand for DeFi applications, the price of Ethereum gas has risen. By August 2020, the number of wallets in this category has been reduced to less than 1,000, and has been slowly recovering since then.
The main reason for the decline is that DApp game users are unwilling to pay such high fees for the usual simple and low-cost transfers, and those who transfer millions of assets are willing to pay gas fees.
Source: DAppRadar
This downward trend provides an ideal opportunity for other blockchains to catch up. For example, the newly forked Hive protocol has maintained a strong position in terms of the number of independent active wallets. The main driving force of this event is Splinterlands, which is currently the number one blockchain game, with more than 6,000 independent wallets active every day.
EOS currently leads the game category. Although user activity only comes from a few separate DApps, namely Upland and Crypto Dynasty, these two games are continuously driving the growth of EOS. By 2020, they will account for 42% and 16% of the total daily active wallets in the EOS game category, respectively.
The EOS land transaction game Upland has grown in 2020 and recently launched Tilia Pay, which allows players to cash in revenue from virtual land transactions into legal tender. Soon, the game hopes to allow users to sell NFT through its virtual companies (for example, art galleries, nurseries, and car dealerships)
We believe that Upland is a good positive example of coin-making blockchain games. The good user experience and most of the blockchain features hidden in the background make this game very popular.
Crypto Dynasty (crypto dynasty) is another coin-earning game that has been very popular in the past two years while maintaining activity on the EOS blockchain. Currently, the number of independent active wallets in Crypto Dynasty is at least three times lower than during peak periods, and there are still about 1,500 active wallets per day.
It is worth noting that the recently observed downward trend can be attributed to game updates and downtime. In addition, we expect the numbers to stabilize again in 2021.
Source: DAppRadar
EOS and Hive are not the only blockchains that have an impact on the gaming industry. First-tier and second-tier network solutions are also seeking a place.
Matic is one of the most popular two-tier solutions tracked by DAppRadar. The number of independent active wallets per day is around 300. This number is not too high but still eye-catching. The biggest contributor is 0xUniverse.
Source: DAppRadar
As mentioned earlier, Flow is another competitor who has set its website as a game category. Flow is a one-layer solution characterized by fast, decentralized, and easy to develop. With the addition of brands such as NBA Top Shot, Animoca and Ubisoft, we expect the blockchain to bring more competition in 2021.
Earn coins game mode
Expensive gas fees have almost killed games on Ethereum in 2020. Although there has been a recent rebound, the main reason behind the growth is the rise of coin-earning game models.
The play-to-earn model is the latest development trend of the DApp game industry. This business model includes the concept of an open economy and provides economic benefits to any participant who adds value to the project.
Axie Infinity is one of the first blockchain games to introduce a coin-earning model. For example, players can use Axie to play games, improve its functions and sell it on Axie Marketplace or other similar platforms. In 2020, there are many reports that players are getting sustainable income from games.
It can be considered as an investment opportunity. Currently, the number of daily independent active wallets in the game has reached approximately 2,500. After the AXS token was released on Binance in early November 2020, a new wave promoted the game.
Source: Axie Infinity extended analytics by DAppRadar
The mode of playing games to earn coins is not limited to these types of DApp games. It is also common in another subcategory of Ethereum games-virtual worlds.
Ethereum’s virtual world
Currently, most virtual world DApps are concentrated on the Ethereum network. Projects like Decentraland, MegaCryptoPolis, The Sandbox and Cryptovoxels have made it possible to create an entire universe on the blockchain. These universes include real estate, objects, wearables, artworks, group activities, etc., enabling users to interact and own items in a virtual environment. In addition, these DApps create opportunities to participate in and profit from the virtual economy.
For example, MegaCryptoPolis allows users to build buildings (such as offices) and rent them out to other users. The wallet will obtain game assets, which can be easily exchanged for game tokens $MEGA. The other world is more like a virtual art gallery, a venue for concerts, exhibitions or festivals.
The user experience of these games is currently very limited, but it is still evolving. It is clear that the developers have made ambitious plans for their world. Currently, it enables users to make money while deeply experiencing the virtual blockchain world.
Source: Nonfungible.com (Token/USD conversion rate on the day of the transaction)
Although most user activities in the virtual world are still event-driven, these DApps can generate considerable transaction volume, which is impressive.
Overall, most activities are obviously very concentrated on the Ethereum blockchain, and scalability issues make it difficult for certain categories and individual DApps to survive.
Nevertheless, to mitigate the risk of such activities in a particular blockchain, interoperability or cross-chain bridging may be the key to success in 2021.
2020 summary
Overall, 2020 is an incredible year. Despite the challenge of the global pandemic of infectious diseases, blockchain applications have emerged. The pandemic of infectious diseases seems to have attracted more and more attention to decentralized solutions, such as universal basic income and globally distributed database management systems.
Ethereum dominated the landscape and maintained a strong leadership position, but new competitors also arrived in 2020 to compete for the crown. The arrival of Ethereum 2.0 has become critical to maintaining leadership.
There is no doubt that 2020 is a year when financial services and products are moving towards decentralization. Although various DApp categories have soared this year, the headlines always belong to DeFi. Looking ahead to 2021, we expect DeFi to exert greater influence than 2020.
It can be expected that the DeFi ecosystem will form the basis of the crypto economy not only for NFTs and games, but also for social, logistics and other DApp categories. NFT market applications continue to set the highest annual record, which shows that as new synergies are discovered, developers are beginning to unite to solve problems and contend with competitors. Mergers and acquisitions become a trend at the end of 2020 and are expected to continue not only in DApps but also in the entire blockchain industry.
Data shows that Binance Smart Chain will become an important competitor of Ethereum in the future. The DApp launched on this blockchain has attracted widespread attention with its continuous development momentum in just a few months.
In the gaming and NFT categories, Flow is also a very promising competitor. Looking forward to 2021, we believe that user acquisition and retention will become the next challenge and also a key indicator of these two just-starting blockchains.
Finally, although regulation is not the subject of this overview, there is no doubt that it will be crucial in 2021. New rules and regulations may affect the way smart contracts work, the industry will be temporarily impacted, and supervision may even challenge the current blockchain infrastructure.
Some important points
To add a bit of vitality to the blockchain and DApp field in 2020, we invited some partners and the media to interview their views on 2020 and the coming year.
Note: The following are only personal opinions and do not represent the official opinions of DAppRadar.
Aleksander Leonard Larsen-Founder and COO of Axie Infinity
2020 is the best year for Axie Infinity so far. Since the beginning of the year, our user base has grown by more than 700%. There is no doubt that Small Love Potions is the greatest success for us, and it is amazing that many players’ lives have changed as a result.
For Axie, 2021 will be even better. We will make major updates to the combat system, land games will be officially released, and use our Ronin sidechain to expand. The secret weapon is of course Axie Infinity Shards, which can make our products grow rapidly.
Tim Copeland-Decrypt news editor
The widespread adoption of Bitcoin by institutions is a feature of this year, mainly including gray-scale Bitcoin trust funds, and companies such as MicroStrategy directly buying Bitcoin. I think that since there are so many rich people owning so many Bitcoins, how Bitcoin will develop will be a very interesting thing.
In terms of Ethereum, it has made technological improvements and started to take a big step towards Ethereum 2.0, and DeFi broke out this year. It is very interesting how many innovations can be made on this blockchain platform. But on the other hand, it is also worth mentioning that a large amount of money has been invested in experimental smart contracts, and a large number of hacking incidents have caused many investors to suffer huge losses. This industry is developing at an alarming rate, and nothing seems to be able to stop it.
Next year may see more regulatory struggles. Now that so many institutional investors and companies are exposed to Bitcoin, regulators may see more reasons to participate. They have been quite active this year, with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) cracking down on ICOs and proposed bills such as the “Stability Act.” But this is cryptocurrency, so it is very unpredictable.
Sebastien Borget – The Sandbox founder and COO
2020 has proved the desire of players for the connected gaming experience, and the interest in the virtual world is higher than ever. Minecraft had 124 million active users in August alone. Some in-game events, such as Travis Scott’s Fortnite concert, are welcomed by 12 million players, and Roblox’s stock market value is estimated at $8 billion, showing the potential of the game.
Although these successes are built on their community, they did not bring any benefits to the players, because the economy of the game exists in the siege and the purchased items are locked inside. In 2021, this situation will change.
In early 2021, we will launch our season system for earning income from playing games, and we will release the first playable Beta version. Items earned by players in the game’s 166,464 LANDs (owned by players and investors such as Atari) can be transferred to other LANDS for trading or sale in “SAND” (the game’s cryptocurrency). Since NFT is traceable and limited, items will gain value based on scarcity.
在虚拟世界中，我们可以设计新模型，用有意义的方式推动社区参与并提供更多价值，而我们尚未探索互操作性的领域，这具有释放数百万NFT 的真正价值的巨大潜力。
仅仅是游戏，仍然有很大的增长空间，如围绕治理，质押和DeFi 的试验。基于NFT 的加密艺术和游戏上个月的突破性销量暗示了2021 年的进一步增长。
Han Kao —— Crypto Briefing 创始人与CEO
如果我用一个词来概括2020 年，那将是Bittersweet （苦中有甜）。不幸的是，全球大流行病突出了数字经济。随着人员和活动转移到网络上，以及政府希望为恢复经济提供资金，在加密社区中提出的论点开始引起更多读者的共鸣。
在全球范围内，人们不得不应对一些非常困难的时期。然而，我们已经看到，宏观事件和杰出的传统投资者证实了比特币的叙事，而DeFi 不再是虚无缥缈的梦想。
2020 年使得许多DApp 开发人员最终可以在生产规模上进行构建和试验。随着更多工具和更多选项的出现，我们应该看到更多的发展和创新，希望更多地关注最终用户体验。
Matthew Lam —— OKEx Insights 分析师
仅代表Matthew 个人观点，不代表OKEx Insights 意见。
我将2020 年总结为「进步」。特别是，我看到了DeFi，NFT 和CBDC 的许多开发进展。流动性挖矿成为了加密社区中排名第一的流行语！
我相信，2020 年是「进步」的一年，2021 年将是「收获」的一年！
在DeFi 方面，我认为AMM 和价格预言机是值得关注的！同时，看到中国明年启动DCEP，华尔街巨头互相竞争以推出其加密交易平台和机构级加密托管解决方案也就不足为奇了！
我认为ETH 2.0 的推出是长期价格驱动因素，明年ETH 的价格我倾向于看涨！
Raindy Lu —— Ontology 市场运营经理
对我们来说，今年的一项重大胜利是在Wing 平台上推出了「包容性池」，这是基于Ontology 区块链构建的第一个基于信用的跨链池。
迈入2021 年，我们的重点是通过帮助更多DApp 专注于自我管理的ID 和数据保护服务来促进生态系统的进一步发展。另一个目标是进一步优化产品开发，并为ONTO 钱包，SAGA 和Wing 平台带来更广泛的用户。
我们相信，随着越来越多的玩家进入这一领域，DeFi 将在2021 年继续保持上升趋势。这将导致进一步的创新，例如质押的不同组合或NFT 的进一步发展。
Antonio Madeira —— CryptoCompare 首席广告经理与CoinTelegraph 供稿人
2020 年是DeFi 受到关注的一年，因为这是链上的新人物，而比特币的地位稳固，在大型机构投资中大放异彩。
我相信DeFi 将开始显示出成熟的迹象，并且该空间的其他部分将开始闪耀，尤其是NFT。我认为比特币将继续在机构投资者中获得吸引力。我相信，许多山寨币的兴趣和价值将继续下降，因为大多数山寨币都没有真正的用处。
孙宇晨—— 波场CEO 与创始人
2020 年是了不起的一年！我对波场在2020 年取得的进展感到非常满意。推出了许多新产品，包括JustStable、JustSwap、JustLend、JustLink、SUN 社区，这为波场的去中心金融生态系统奠定了基础。
我们将专注于发展和扩容我们的DeFi 基础架构。通过我们平台搭建的DeFi 产品，波场的DeFi 项目将以JST 为基础，整合去中心化借贷，交易和其他金融服务。然后JST 将演变为赋能的源泉，并成为整个波场DeFi 生态系统的重要标志。我们在DeFi 的位置说明了波场从小规模的成功逐渐演变成为行业领导者和创新者。
DeFi 将在2021 年继续增长，因为它使许多无银行账户的人和企业都可以使用金融服务。我们将继续在波场上发展稳定币生态系统，并邀请更多受监管的稳定币。
人们对区块链技术的兴趣持续增长，今天，有比以往更多的大型机构在对区块链解决方案进行大量投资。
Dirk Lueth —— Upland CEO
一句话：开始。（当然，我指的是NFT 成为主流的开始）。
2020 年还不是NFT 的一年。直到今年年底，我们才开始看到这种想法变得成熟，产品变得更加复杂，而且我们看到了非加密迷们开始关注的早期迹象。即使有一些NFT 的售价都达到了数千美元，但这并不代表被大众市场所采纳。
可以说，一旦日活跃用户达到10 万以上，区块链就会开始成为主流。2021 年，第一批公司将打破这一障碍。然而，最大的问题仍然是，究竟这些新入局者是否从头开始就拥有区块链DNA，还是来自于在现有游戏中增加了区块链功能的老牌公司。
我认为区块链市场的交易例如数字艺术，收藏品和其他资产将开始转移到多重世界中，因为后者可以创造更好的内容，用户和交易体验。
最后：来自于现实世界的代币化资产将丰富NFT 的世界，有人会拥有毕加索吗？数字和物理世界之间的界线将会模糊。
Dr. Jesse 「aggroed」 Reich – Splinterlands 创始人与CEO
Splinterlands 做得很棒。9 月，我们首次达到1 万的月活跃用户，我们看到新用户每月增长约10%，而我们在社交媒体上的影响力也在不断扩大。所有这些都为我们土地销售的成功做出了贡献，其中第一桩土地在21 秒内售罄，第二桩土地在30 分钟内售罄。
我们将增加第二轮战斗，让玩家看到棋盘，游戏物品和咒语。为了实现这一目标，我们必须出售物品和咒语，不仅仅是将它们包装在一起，而是将铸造的权利转让给玩家。土地所有者将收获资源，建造建筑物，杀死怪物，并使用所有这些来制作物品和法术，可在市场上出租或出售。
我认为2021 年是比特币和加密货币不可思议的牛市。我看到加密货币中的每种类型的业务都表现出色，并享受世界历史上最大的财富转移。
