Layer 2 and DeFi in 2023 when NFTs lose their luster

In the year In 2023, the Ethereum blockchain has seen dramatic changes in the way users and entities participate. According to Nansen's latest report, there has been an impressive increase with more than 300,000 active Ethereum addresses per day.

Among these active addresses, DeFi components have maintained their position as dominant players. In the year As of October 12, 2023, users of DFI alone outnumber NFT and Layer 2 staking users, reinforcing the sector's central role in on-chain activity.

‘Layer 2, Bridge and Infrastructure' Sector Booms

In terms of new users, Layer 2 activity has seen a significant increase. According to Nansen's report, this shows a shift towards scalability solutions, with new users increasingly adding Layer 2 platforms as their first choice.

The transition is in line with a broader trend in which users count towards Layer 2 and the scale has seen greater growth, thanks to the adoption of more efficient Layer 2 infrastructure and the potential of airdrop farmers.

A closer look at the relationships between entities confirms these trends. While almost all sectors showed year-over-year growth in transaction counts, the ‘Layer 2, Bridging, and Infrastructure' category led the way with an impressive 149.28% growth.

The NFT sector is declining, but DeFi is resilient.

NFT users surpassed Defi users in 2022, before starting a sharp decline from early 2023. In fact, the daily number of users in this sector has declined by more than 50% since the beginning of the year.

This is in contrast to Layer 1/scaling users, which increased significantly in March, coinciding with the launch of zkSync's public network and Arbitrum weather, before the measures returned to previous levels in May.

Next, the number of users in the “Scale” category saw another spike and has remained relatively stable since June. It is important to note that the DeFi user group dominates among these clusters.

“Also, another interesting observation above is that Defy's user numbers seem to have reached a ‘cruise' pace, sitting just below bull market levels.”

In contrast, the ‘NFT, Gaming and GambleFi sector' saw a 61.4% decline in activity, indicating a decrease in new users focused on NFT.

Additionally, the number of users engaging with NFT entities continues to decline in 2023, highlighting the declining appeal of the NFT sector to new wallet owners. At the start of the year, NFTs accounted for more than 24% of all first steps by new users, but by October 12, this figure had dropped to just over 6%.