A look at the blockchain industry: the best decentralized applications and the current trend

In this article we take a look at the best decentralized applications (dapps) of the web3 world and analyze the current dominant trends that are attracting the most capital.

What will be the most closely watched dynamics of the cryptographic markets in 2024? 

Let’s see all the details below.

The best decentralized applications for TVL: the evolution of the sector since 2020

Starting from 2020, the blockchain sector has witnessed the growth of a wide range of decentralized applications, which have radically changed the way technology is perceived and used by end users.

Until that moment Bitcoin, Ethereum and other distributed systems were considered exclusively as “accounting ledgers” capable of transferring cryptographic value from one address to another.

With the birth of dapps instead, the web3 has taken on a different form, becoming a digital environment where it was possible to access basic financial services without relying on a central bank of reference.

Uniswap, Maker, Aave, Curve, Compound, and Sushi have dominated the initial expansion period of decentralized applications, with the Ethereum blockchain serving as the ideal place to develop smart contracts.

Until today, the situation has changed significantly: Ethereum remains the dominant network for dapp development but has been joined by a long list of colleagues such as Solana, Tron, Arbitrum, BSC, Polygon, Avalanche, Optimism, and all the emerging layer-2.

On the Dapp front, the scenario has become much more complex and competitive: while before there were only a few protocols focused on the classic use cases of decentralized exchanges, lending, and CDPs, today things have become much more intertwined.

The first decentralized application for TVL to lead this constantly evolving market is Lido, a platform for liquid staking which, coinciding with Ethereum’s transition to PoS staking, has achieved incredible success.

According to DefiLama data, this dapp alone boasts $27.13 billion in TVL with a market share of 37.5% compared to all other protocols.

Maker earns the silver medal with $8.33 billion in TVL and Aave closes the podium with $8.17 billion.

Immediately after, we find a “new entry”, namely the Restaking platform EigenLayer, which in less than a year has conquered the 4th place in the ranking, attracting capital of a whopping 7 billion dollars.

Following are successful projects such as Justlend, Uniswap (which remains a DEX industry leader despite the change), RocketPool, Spark, Summer.fi and Compound Finance.

Of the top 10 decentralized applications for TVL, only 4 already existed before 2020 and still play a dominant role in the web3 landscape.

In the coming years, the context of dapps could evolve at an even faster pace, with new emerging trends dominating public attention, completely revolutionizing this niche sector as we know it.

The dominant trends in the blockchain landscape in 2024

New trends could significantly change the current blockchain scenario and new decentralized applications could replace the ones that are currently the most used.

The restaking is definitely the most spotlighted one, with many protocols proposing to offer an additional layer to the concept of Ethereum staking.

Eigenlayer, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, has managed to attract a lot of visibility and a large amount of capital in relatively short timeframes.

It is likely that in 2024 new decentralized applications based on restaking will be born and that this practice will also expand outside the Ethereum blockchain with different methods and use cases.

Another very hot narrative at the moment is that of the “Real World Asset” protocol (RWA) which develops a parallel economy by bringing real assets into the blockchain world.

Chainlink, Ondo Finance, Realio, Avalanche and Boson lead this niche market by aiming to offer increasingly efficient and secure products to their stakeholders, increasing the use cases of this innovative cryptographic practice.

According to the analysis of the Boston Consulting Group, the RWA sector will reach a valuation of 16 trillion dollars by 2023.

Even for the gaming sector, forecasts speak of unprecedented growth, with hundreds of new decentralized applications ready to offer a suite of innovative games to the web3 world.

The concept of “gamification” is developing parallel to the typical financial characteristics of dapps, offering a hybrid experience between the social and economic realms that has never been seen before.

Most likely gaming projects will have a very important follow-up during 2024, especially if accompanied by community incentive campaigns like the classic airdrops.

Finally, last but not least, the trend of artificial intelligence could carve out a dominant role during the current year, potentially integrating with decentralized applications based on gaming experiences.

Now under everyone’s eye, AI technology is completely revolutionizing the way we approach everyday life in the digital world, with services and tools that automate most of the processes for which until a few months ago we had to dedicate time and resources to bring them to a successful conclusion.

Since the birth of ChatGPT, it’s as if the awareness of how extremely convenient and productive the new emerging AI tools are has spread.

On the crypto and blockchain front, it is clear that several decentralized applications will base their concept precisely on this trend, trying to attract as many users as possible.

Anyway, just like what happened with the Metaverse narrative that dominated the years 2021-2022, it is likely that many dapps working in this field will not leave a mark and will die miserably because they are unable to develop a convenient, efficient, and sustainable use case for the end user.