Q2 2025 DApp Market Report: AI Agents Rapidly Rise, RWA and Gaming Drive NFT Revival

The DApp ecosystem showed a diversified development trend in the second quarter: AI agent applications emerged strongly, the value of NFTs shifted from ostentation to practicality, and DeFi sought a balance between rising total locked value and shrinking financing. These data not only reflect market activity but also reveal user trends, shifts in fields, and key trends that are reshaping the future of DApps.

The current market no longer solely relies on speculation. Users are beginning to pursue substantive value: AI agents that can complete tasks, NFTs tied to physical assets, and DeFi platforms that offer sustainable returns. However, risks still exist: losses from hacking attacks have sharply increased, highlighting the fragility of trust and the significant costs that minor oversights can bring.

This report delves into the changes in the industry landscape, comprehensively analyzing data dynamics in the fields of DeFi, NFT, gaming, AI, and more. From wallet activity, trading volume to application and capital flow, we track key signals and focus on the core narratives shaping the crypto industry in the second quarter of 2025.

Key Findings:

• In the second quarter of 2025, the average daily active unique wallets for DApps was 24.3 million, a quarter-on-quarter decrease of 2.5%, but still a staggering increase of 247% compared to the beginning of 2024.
• The total locked value in DeFi reached $200 billion, a quarter-on-quarter increase of 28%, mainly benefiting from a 36% rebound in Ethereum. However, the financing amount in the DeFi sector declined by 50% quarter-on-quarter, with only $483 million raised in the second quarter, resulting in a total financing amount of $1.4 billion for the first two quarters of 2025.
• NFT trading volume plummeted by 45% to $867 million, but the number of sales surged by 78% to 14.9 million, reflecting a sharp decline in the market average price, while the number of traders increased by 20%.
• RWA NFT trading volume increased by 29%, ranking second in the sector, with the Courtyard platform becoming the second largest NFT market by trading volume this quarter.
• The trading volume of Guild of Guardians NFT has surged to first and fourth places, surpassing BAYC and CryptoPunks, marking a turning point for gaming NFTs.
• Web3 lost $6.3 billion due to security incidents, an increase of 215% compared to the previous period. The Mantra exploit case alone resulted in a loss of $5.5 billion, making it the second largest security incident in the crypto industry since the FTX bankruptcy case in 2022 (which resulted in an $8 billion loss).

1. The number of daily active unique wallets for DApps remains stable at 24 million, with significant growth in the AI and social sectors.

The activity level of DApps decreased by 2.5% this quarter, with the average number of daily active unique wallets at 24.3 million. Nevertheless, we can still consider that the ecosystem has stabilized at this level, which is a sign of the industry's increasing maturity and also proves that users are continuously interacting with DApps across multiple application areas. It is worth noting that many users operate multiple wallets, so there is a discrepancy between the number of daily active unique wallets and the actual number of users. However, this metric still serves as a strong indicator of user engagement. Just a few quarters ago, the number of daily active unique wallets was around 5 million, and the pace of development is quite evident.

The number of active wallets in DeFi and GameFi has both decreased, with DeFi down by 33% and GameFi down by 17%. On the other hand, Social and AI DApps have seen growth, which is consistent with broader industry trends.

In the Social sector, the rise of InfoFi is noteworthy, with platforms like Kaito and Cookie DAO leading the way. In the AI sector, agent-based DApps are showing strong momentum, with Virtuals Protocol standing out.

As expected, these changes at the sector level have also affected the distribution of dominance. The decrease in activity in the DeFi and Gaming sectors has led to a reduction in their market share, while the AI and Social sectors have captured and expanded more share. Comparing the second quarter of 2025 with the first quarter, it is clear that the AI sector is rising rapidly, with the Social sector closely following. By the end of this year, it would not be surprising if AI surpasses either Gaming or DeFi in dominance.

In fact, observing the ranking of independent wallets for this quarter, there is an artificial intelligence DApp at the top.

The remaining positions on this list are occupied by many well-known projects, primarily from the DeFi sector. Given that these projects have consistently maintained long-term stable operations amid the Meme coin craze and Agent token frenzy, such a distribution is understandable.

In addition, another perspective worth noting is that this quarter we have added the "Dormant DApp" metric, specifically tracking those decentralized applications that were active in the first quarter of 2025 but completely ceased activity in the second quarter.

We focus on analyzing several main categories: the number of inactive decentralized applications in the DeFi sector increased by 2%, gaming applications grew by 9%, and NFT applications rose by 10%. This analysis particularly includes high-risk applications, whose inactivity rate actually decreased significantly by 40%, indicating that they are still in use and rarely abandoned. However, the most surprising aspect is the artificial intelligence sector, where inactive AI applications surged by 129%. Although this percentage seems astonishing, it actually corresponds to only 16 applications. Nevertheless, this phenomenon still raises important considerations: it highlights that these projects (especially in gaming and AI) are still in their early development stages, and without sufficient funding support, achieving mainstream application is immensely challenging. In the Web3 space, user retention remains the most daunting challenge, and these data undoubtedly confirm this.

2. The total locked value of DeFi skyrockets to $200 billion in Q2 2025, but financing amounts plummet by 50%

This quarter's macroeconomy has fluctuated like a roller coaster, and the DeFi sector has not been able to remain unaffected by this turmoil. Nevertheless, the market is still showing positive signals: first, the cryptocurrency market has rebounded strongly, with Bitcoin rising 30% compared to the first quarter of 2025, Ethereum climbing 36%, and the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies growing by 25% quarter-on-quarter. Naturally, the DeFi sector follows this upward trend, with the total value locked surpassing $200 billion, achieving a 28% quarter-on-quarter increase.

Observing the total locked value performance of various major blockchains, most chains recorded steady growth, while Tron showed a downward trend with a decline of 8%. In terms of market share, Ethereum still maintains a leading position with an absolute advantage, accounting for 62% of the total TVL in the DeFi sector, followed by Solana with a share of 10%.

The standout of this quarter is Hyperliquid L1, whose TVL surged by 547%. This high-performance Layer 1 blockchain is designed for on-chain perpetual contracts and spot trading, utilizing the HyperBFT consensus model inspired by HotStuff.

Finally, we analyzed the influx of investments into the DeFi sector this quarter. The sector has raised a total of $483 million, a decline of 50% compared to the first quarter. So far in 2025, DeFi projects have secured approximately $1.4 billion in funding. Although this figure indicates a slowdown compared to the explosive growth we have seen in previous cycles, it still shows stable interest from capital in the sector, and may also suggest a more mature direction for capital allocation. Let's see how the trends unfold for the rest of this year, but for now, it seems that the trend is stabilizing.

3. NFT sales surged by 78%, while trading volume declined: RWA and gaming lead market shift

We all hope that the NFT market can welcome a revival. Although overall attention remains, some core data is still not optimistic. This quarter, NFT trading volume plummeted by 45%, but trading volume increased by 78% against the trend. This confirms the trend we have observed over the long term: NFTs are becoming more affordable, but market enthusiasm has not diminished; instead, it has shifted in nature.

To better understand the reasons behind this transformation, we have sorted the NFT categories with the highest trading volumes this quarter, and the data reveals an interesting phenomenon: new narrative stories are emerging, while old narrative patterns are making a comeback.

Data shows that the trading volume of personal avatar NFTs has been severely impacted, plummeting by 72%. In contrast, real-world asset (RWA) NFTs have jumped to second place in the trading volume rankings with a 29% increase. The trading volume of art NFTs has decreased by 51%, but the transaction volume has surged by 400%, indicating that art prices have significantly dropped, making art NFTs more accessible to ordinary buyers.

The recent trend of returning is domain NFTs, with both trading volume and sales rising sharply. This growth is mainly driven by the TON public chain ecosystem, as Telegram users are rushing to purchase anonymous domain names based on digital numbers. Such domain names can be linked to Telegram accounts without the need for a SIM card, and this very fitting use case for specific needs has clearly sparked market enthusiasm.

After understanding which categories are becoming trends, we began to focus on the number of traders to determine whether market participants are continuously growing or are returning.

In this quarter, the average monthly NFT traders reached 668,598, an increase of 20% compared to the previous quarter. Combined with the phenomenon of a surge in sales, this indicates that users are slowly but steadily returning to the NFT space, although their motivations may differ from those in past booms.

Despite a significant decline in trading volume, a certain trading platform continues to maintain its leading position. However, its sales volume has risen in sync with the Courtyard platform. This surge in the trading platform is closely related to the news of its upcoming token launch. The airdrop will target both old users and those currently active on the updated version of the platform. As a result, many users are actively trading low-priced NFT collectibles to earn points, trying to maximize future reward returns, which is a classic move often seen in other airdrop activities.

At the same time, the Courtyard platform has rapidly climbed to the second position in the industry. This clearly indicates that the narrative of RWA is not only heating up in the DeFi space but is also creating waves in the NFT sector. Frankly, this development is encouraging. The tokenization process of physical assets is likely to become a key catalyst in pushing NFTs into the mainstream.

We also investigated which product lines will dominate in the second quarter of 2025, and the data shows an unexpected shift.

![2025 Q2 DApp Market Report