Number of Unique Active Wallets, Decentralised Apps Spiked in 2023 Testifying to Web3 Boom: Report

The overall Web3 industry witnessed a bunch of ups and downs in the year of 2023 – but in the midst of all the turmoil, it did manage to attract more attention and recorded a boom. The number of unique active wallets (UAW) that interacted with Web3 spiked by 124 percent in 2023, as per a fresh report by DappRadar. In addition, the number of decentralised apps (dApps) also saw the addition of 2,985 new ones last year.

Unique Active Wallets is a term of measurement in the Web3 sector. It represents the number of crypto wallets that were linked with dApps or saw transactions of digital assets over a period of time. In 2023, an average of 4.2 million UAWs engaged with dApps, that run on blockchain networks rather than on traditional servers.

Binance’s BNB Chain topped the list of the top ten blockchains by UAW in 2023. Wax, Near, zkSync-Era, Polygon, Ethereum, Abritrum, Hive, Klaytn, and Solana ranked second to tenth respectively on the list, the report by DappRadar showed.

“NFT collections have gained increased interest, as the number of new wallets trading and using these assets increased 166 percent. Blockchain-powered games continue to lead the charge in terms of dApp activity, recording a yearly dominance of 34 percent with an average of 1.1 million UAW by year’s end,” the report noted.

For the overall sector of Decentralised Finance (DeFi), the year of 2023 emerged to be rather fruitful. The Total Value Locked (TVL) in DeFi rallied by 77 percent in 2023, reaching $103 billion (roughly Rs. 8,54,454 crore) with Ethereum dominating with 57 percent share.

The DappRadar report has credited PancakeSwap as the leader in the DeFi space, emerging as the most used dApp in 2023 with over 860,000 monthly UAW. PancakeSwap is a decentralised crypto exchange that is famous for charging lesser fees and processing brisk transactions.

The report also noted that the overall crypto sector saw a drop of 96 percent in financial losses due to hacks and exploits.