DeFi and NFT Upticks in May May Signal the Start of a Recovery

Ethereum dominates the NFT market with a 30% increase in volume and a 53% market share, ahead of all competitors.

The decentralized application industry has also seen a revival, with Bitcoin moving to a new all-time high in May, creating a boom in cryptocurrencies.

Indeed, Dapradar's latest findings identify May 2025 as a turning point for the DAP sector. At the same time, the NFT market also saw signs of life.

A turning point for the DAP ecosystem

In May, daily unique active wallets (dUAW) rose 8 percent to 25 million amid broadly positive market trends, showing new optimism for the dapp industry. Significant growth was seen in three key areas: AI Dapps grew 23% to 4.8 million dUAW, Social Dapps grew 21% to 4.3 million, and NFT Dapps grew 9% to 3.9 million.

These sector-specific findings indicate more intensive user engagement and contribute to a balanced DAP ecosystem, says the Dapradar report. Meanwhile, AI, DeFi, and game dapps were seen to converge in terms of user activity, and each accounted for a similar share, showing a diverse and developed market.

Total Value Locked (TVL) grew by 25 percent to nearly $200 billion, driven by strong growth in the DFI sector. This growth is in line with the overall market rally led by Bitcoin's new all-time high and Ethereum's 40% price increase, which has boosted DeFi asset values ​​and liquidity.

Decentralized exchange HyperLiquid stood out with a trading volume of $244 billion, holding 10% of Binance's market share, despite heavy criticism from prominent industry players after a market manipulation incident. This achievement places HyperLiquid among the top 5 exchanges in terms of transaction volume across both centralized and decentralized platforms and among TVL's top 10 across all blockchain networks.

NFT market recovery

Meanwhile, the NFT market showed renewed activity in May, with trading volume up 40% month-on-month to $280 million. Transaction count was also up 35%, totaling 2.7 million. Although these figures indicate the pace of improvement, Dapradar said it is premature to call it a full recovery. Continued growth in the coming months will be crucial, but recent findings still offer a promising sign for the sector.

You may also like:

Ethereum regained its leadership in the NFT market in May, with 30% of trading volume and 53% market share. It was followed by immutable zkEVM at 13% and Abstract at 10%. Abstract's 1200% increase was largely driven by speculation related to farm incentives and airdrops.