Gaming Claimed Record 60% of Blockchain Activity in July: DappRadar

Blockchain-based game playing was a bright spot in DappRadar’s most recent report summarizing key industry themes in July.

“While [decentralized finance] and overall blockchain activity have been on the downside, game Unique Active Wallets (UAW) continues to rise, reaching almost 1 million daily wallets,” Pedro Herrera, DappRadar’s head of research, told CoinDesk in an email.

Game dapps contributed to 60% of overall blockchain activity in July, touching an all-time high.

“Although game tokens also suffer from challenging market conditions, blockchain games continue to be played at growing ratios. With relevant gaming events like The Sandbox Alpha Season 3, Illuvium’s Beta gameplay, Gala live games or Axie Infinity’s land staking available, Web3 games are shaping to be the industry’s driving force for months to come,” Herrera added.

Non-fungible token (NFT) volumes have weakened during the crypto bear market, with volumes failing to reach $1 billion in trades for the first time since June 2021, according to DappRadar. NFT platform Yuga Labs stood out, comprising over 20% of the NFT market total trading volume in July.

NFT giant OpenSea remains the dominant marketplace, though its share of the market by trading volume has dropped to 60% for the first time since it was started, DappRadar found. It added that OpenSea peers, including X2Y2 on Ethereum and Solana’s Magic Eden, grabbed some of OpenSea's market share (84% in May). Further competition in the sector looms for OpenSea from the likes of GameStop and Nickelodeon’s recent NFT initiatives.

“The question remains whether NFTs can get back to the euphoria level experienced during the avatar craze and whether the crypto market can finally decouple from the capital markets that might suffer a rocky macro environment in the near future,” Herrera said.

“Overall, the dapp industry is responding well to the crypto winter and the turmoil from the crypto contagion. It remains to be seen whether the downfall of Terra and the [Three Arrows Capital] and Celsius [Network] bankruptcies still have more to uncover. However, expect regulators to speed up their policy-making processes,” according to Herrera.