📌 Pulse check on Ethereum Dapps
📡 Dapp Radar
Every few weeks, I check the DappRadar website to conduct a pulse check on Ethereum dapp development. There are a few websites that index decentralized applications, but DappRadar is my favorite because it is data-driven. It displays metrics that are helpful for understanding both the health of the underlying smart contract platform as well as the dapp itself such as daily active users (DAUs), volume, and transactions.
DappRadar also categorizes each dapp, which allows you to get a feel for how the Ethereum network is being used today. Here is a quick visual I put together of the index’s top 100 dapps and their aggregate transaction share by category:
Even with these broad buckets, the data tells a similar story to what I’ve been hearing anecdotally, which is that aside from decentralized exchange (e.g. ForkDelta), today most dapps are games built by hobbyists rather than real businesses.
If you have some time, check out the DappRadar website for yourself and poke around some of the dapps. You will come away with a good understanding of the ecosystem today and the types of dapps that are out there.
🔎 UX needs improvement
Which brings me to my next point. If you try using any of the popular dapps, you will quickly find that the user experience is—in a word—clunky.
This is to be expected. Dapps have only recently started integrating with wallets such as MetaMask, and there is still a lot of work to be done to further reduce user friction. With that said, I don’t think it’s crazy to believe in a future that looks like this:
This is certainly an aspirational goal, but as more professional product builders enter the crypto space in the coming months, I suspect we’ll see some slick dapps come to market. I for one am very excited for that to happen.Want to get in touch? Find me on Twitter (@spencernoon).