AI and Social Daps Lead Growth as Crypto Market Cools Post-Trump Election

DeFi suffered greatly in Q1 with a 15% decline compared to Q4 2024 due to lower trading volume.

In Q1 2025, the dapp industry maintained its strength despite a slight dip in activity. Although the crypto market had strong momentum leading up to Trump's presidency, after that the mood changed rapidly and eventually triggered a decline in asset prices.

Historically, such failures have reduced user engagement using decentralized applications. Still, daily unique active wallets (dUAW) slipped just 3% from last quarter to 24 million.

According to a recent report by DapRadar, the user base has remained relatively stable. In this space, AI and Social dapps have been top performers. The AI ​​category was found to have experienced a 29 percent increase in activity, with 2.6 million dUAW. Social apps also grew steadily, increasing by 10 percent to reach 2.8 million dUAW.

DeFi struggles but Solana dominates the top dapps.

DeFi was hit the hardest in Q1 2025, with DapRadar recording a 15% decline in trading activity from the previous quarter. Despite the setback, it continues to lead among the DAP sectors, although its dominance has shrunk to around 4%. The blockchain game has also slowed down a bit.

Among the top DAPs in user activity, Layer 1 network Solana remains dominant, powering three of the top five platforms. Pump.fun, for one, which allows tokens to be launched on Solana, saw an impressive 112% increase in usage this quarter. Despite the broader volatility in the market, Shuru highlighted the continued hype around meme coins.

NFT market freezes in Q1

The NFT market stumbled in early 2025, as Q1 trading volume dropped to $1.5 billion. This is a 24% decrease from the previous quarter. While overall sales were down only 10%, this reflected a decline in high-value transactions rather than user engagement. Falling token prices, particularly Ethereum's, may have caused this change. Lower valuations hit the overall volume harder than participation, indicating continued demand for NFTs despite a challenging environment.

While OKX is at the peak of NFT trading, OpenSea has seen higher transactions, due in part to the February 13 release of the OS2 beta. This update brings a beautiful new UI and support for 14 more blockchains. Blur maintained momentum in terms of volume but saw only 7% of OpenSea's sales. Meanwhile, CryptoPunks remains a core group, even if rising prices make it out of reach for many average users.

You may also like: