Q2 2025 DApp Market Report: Rise of AI Agent Applications, RWA and Gaming Drive NFT Market Transformation

AI proxy applications are emerging, redefining the value of NFTs with real-world assets, the capital-raising ability of DeFi is weakening, and a $6.3 billion security incident has exposed the industry's shortcomings.

Despite the recovery of prices in the crypto market and improved investment sentiment, the DApp ecosystem presents a different picture: AI agent applications have seen explosive growth, the value of NFTs has shifted from ostentatiousness to functionality, while DeFi seeks to balance an increase in total locked value with a reduction in financing. These data not only reflect market activity but also reveal users' true directions, lagging areas, and key trends that are reshaping the future of DApps.

The current market is no longer purely driven by speculation. Users are beginning to seek actual value: whether it's AI agents that can complete tasks, NFTs associated with physical assets, or DeFi platforms that provide sustainable returns. However, the risks remain high: losses due to exploits have sharply increased, highlighting the fragility of trust and the danger that minor oversights can be maliciously exploited.

This report provides an in-depth analysis of changes in the industry landscape, thoroughly examining data dynamics in fields such as DeFi, NFT, gaming, and AI. From wallet activity, transaction volumes to applications and capital flows, we track key indicators and focus on the core narratives shaping the cryptocurrency industry in the second quarter of 2025.

Key points overview:

• In the second quarter of 2025, the average daily active unique wallets for DApp was 24.3 million, a decrease of 2.5% month-on-month, but still an increase of 247% compared to the beginning of 2024.
• The total value locked in DeFi reached $200 billion, a quarter-on-quarter increase of 28%, mainly benefiting from Ethereum's 36% rise. However, financing in the DeFi sector fell by 50% quarter-on-quarter, with only $483 million raised in the second quarter, bringing the total financing amount to $1.4 billion for the first two quarters of 2025.
• The NFT trading volume decreased by 45% to $867 million, but the number of sales increased by 78% to 14.9 million, reflecting a drop in the average market price, while the number of traders grew by 20%.
• The trading volume of real-world asset NFTs increased by 29%, rising to the second position in the field, with the Courtyard platform becoming the second largest NFT market by trading volume this quarter.
• The trading volume of Guild of Guardians NFT has jumped to first and fourth place, surpassing BAYC and CryptoPunks, marking an important moment for game-related NFTs.
• Web3 lost $6.3 billion due to security incidents, an increase of 215% compared to the previous period. The Mantra exploitation case had a single loss of up to $5.5 billion, making it the second largest security incident in the cryptocurrency industry since the FTX bankruptcy case in 2022 (which resulted in a loss of $8 billion).

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

The activity level of DApps in this quarter has decreased by 2.5%, with the average number of daily active unique wallets being 24.3 million. Nevertheless, the ecosystem has stabilized at this level, which is both a sign of the industry's increasing maturity and proof 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 remains a strong indicator of user engagement. Just a few quarters ago, the number of daily active unique wallets was around 5 million, and its growth rate is quite evident.

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

In the Social domain, the rise of InfoFi is noteworthy, with platforms like Kaito and Cookie DAO leading the way. In the AI field, 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 decline in activity in the DeFi and Gaming sectors has led to a decrease 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 rise of the AI sector is rapid, with the Social sector closely following. I believe that by the end of this year, it would not be surprising if AI surpasses either Gaming or DeFi in terms of dominance.

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

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

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

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

2. The total locked value in DeFi soared to $200 billion in Q2 2025, but the financing amount plummeted by 50%.

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

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 holds an absolute advantage in the DeFi sector, occupying 62% of the total TVL, followed by Solana with a share of 10%.

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

We also researched the most active DeFi decentralized applications in the second quarter of 2025, deeply analyzing the areas with the highest current user participation.

In the end, we analyzed the investments flowing into the DeFi sector this quarter. The sector raised a total of $483 million, a decrease 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 seen in the past few cycles, it still demonstrates a stable interest from capital in the sector and may suggest a more mature direction of 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%, but trading volume has declined: RWA and gaming lead the market shift

We all look forward to the revival of the NFT market. Although overall attention remains, some core data is still not optimistic. This quarter, the NFT trading volume plummeted by 45%, but the trading volume increased by 78% against the trend. This confirms the trend we have observed for a long time: NFTs are becoming increasingly affordable, but the market heat has not diminished; instead, it has shifted in nature.

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

Data shows that the trading volume of personal avatar NFTs has been severely hit, plummeting by 72%. In contrast, real-world asset (RWA) NFTs have surged 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 skyrocketed by 400%, indicating that the prices of artworks have dropped significantly, making art NFTs more accessible to ordinary buyers.

The recent trend of returning is domain NFTs, with both trading volume and sales amount on the rise. This growth is primarily driven by the TON public chain ecosystem, as Telegram users are scrambling 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 highly specific use case has evidently sparked market enthusiasm.

After understanding which categories are becoming trends, we begin to focus on the number of traders to assess 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 soaring sales, this indicates that users are slowly but steadily returning to the NFT space, although their motivations may differ from those during past booms.

Despite a significant drop in trading volume, a certain trading platform still maintains a leading position. However, its sales volume has risen in sync with the Courtyard platform. This wave of growth for 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. This has resulted in many users actively trading low-priced NFT collectibles to earn points, trying to maximize future reward returns, which is exactly what other airdrops do.