Author: Sara Gherghelas, DappRadar
Translation: Tim, PANews
AI agents top the market, RWA redefines NFT value, DeFi attracts funds but loses momentum, and the $6.3 billion hacker attack in the second quarter exposed the industry's vulnerabilities.
Despite the rebound in cryptocurrency market prices and improved sentiment, the DApp ecosystem presents a different picture: AI agents have experienced explosive growth, NFT values have shifted from ostentation to functionality, while DeFi is navigating the gap between rising TVL and shrinking financing. These data not only showcase market activity but also reveal the true direction of users, areas that are falling behind, and key trends reshaping the future of DApps.
The era we are in now, where mere hype can drive market trends, is long gone. Users are beginning to seek genuine value: whether it's AI agents capable of completing tasks, NFTs associated with RWAs, or DeFi platforms providing sustainable returns. However, risks remain high: losses from exploit events are sharply rising, highlighting how fragile trust can be, and even minor oversights can be exploited by malicious actors.
This report delves into the changes in the industry landscape, providing a comprehensive analysis of the data dynamics in DeFi, NFT, gaming, AI, and other fields. From wallet activity to transaction volume, applications, and capital flows, we track key signals and closely observe the core narratives shaping the crypto industry in Q2 2025.
Key points:
In Q2 2025, the average number of daily active independent wallets for DApps was 24.3 million, a 2.5% decrease quarter-on-quarter, but a staggering 247% increase compared to early 2024.
The total locked value in DeFi reached $200 billion, with a quarter-on-quarter growth of 28%, primarily benefiting from Ethereum's 36% rebound. However, the financing amount in the DeFi sector dropped by 50% quarter-on-quarter, with only $483 million raised in Q2, totaling $1.4 billion in financing across the first two quarters of 2025.
NFT trading volume plummeted by 45% to $867 million, but sales surged by 78% to 14.9 million transactions, reflecting a sharp drop in the average market price, while the number of traders increased by 20%.
RWA NFT trading volume grew by 29%, rising to second place in the track, with the Courtyard platform becoming the second-largest NFT market by trading volume this quarter.
Guild of Guardians' NFT trading volume soared to first and fourth place, surpassing BAYC and CryptoPunks, marking a turning point for gaming NFTs.
Web3 lost $6.3 billion due to security incidents, a 215% increase quarter-on-quarter. The single loss from the Mantra exploitation case reached $5.5 billion, making it the second largest security incident in the crypto industry since the 2022 FTX bankruptcy (which lost $8 billion).
1. The daily active independent wallets for Dapps remain stable at 24 million, with significant growth in AI and social sectors.
This quarter, Dapp activity declined by 2.5%, with the average number of daily active independent wallets at 24.3 million. Nevertheless, we can still consider the ecosystem stable 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. Notably, many users operate multiple wallets, so the number of daily active independent wallets may differ from the actual user count. However, this metric remains a strong indicator of user engagement. Just a few quarters ago, the number of daily active independent wallets was around 5 million, demonstrating significant growth.
The number of active wallets in both DeFi and GameFi has declined, with DeFi down 33% and GameFi down 17%. On the other hand, Social and AI Dapps have seen growth, aligning with broader industry trends.
In the Social field, the rise of InfoFi is notable, 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 shifts at the sector level have also affected the distribution of dominance. The decline in the activity of the DeFi and Gaming sectors has led to a decrease in their market share, while the AI and Social sectors have seized and expanded more share. Comparing Q2 2025 with Q1, the rise of the AI sector is particularly rapid, with the Social sector following closely. By the end of this year, it would not be surprising if AI surpasses either Gaming or DeFi in dominance.
In fact, observing the Dapps ranked highly in independent wallets this quarter, there is an AI Dapp at the top.
The remaining seats on this list are occupied by various well-known projects, primarily from the DeFi sector. Given that these projects have maintained long-term stable operations during the Meme coin craze and Agent token frenzy, such a distribution is understandable.
Additionally, another perspective worth noting is that we have introduced a 'Dormant Dapp' metric this quarter, specifically tracking those decentralized applications that were active in Q1 2025 but completely ceased activity in Q2.
We focused our analysis on several main categories: Non-active decentralized applications in the DeFi sector increased by 2%, gaming grew by 9%, and NFT applications rose by 10%. This analysis particularly included high-risk applications, whose inactivity rate has significantly dropped by 40%, indicating they are still in use and rarely abandoned. But the most surprising finding is in the AI sector, where non-active AI applications surged by 129%. Although this percentage seems astonishing, it corresponds to only 16 applications. Nevertheless, this phenomenon 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 applications will be challenging. In the Web3 space, user retention remains the most severe challenge, and this data undoubtedly confirms that.
2. The total locked value in DeFi surged to $200 billion in Q2 2025, but the financing amount plummeted by 50%.
The macroeconomic landscape this quarter has been like a roller coaster, and the DeFi sector has not been able to remain unscathed in this turmoil. Nevertheless, the market still shows positive signals: firstly, the cryptocurrency market prices have rebounded strongly, with Bitcoin rising 30% compared to Q1 2025 and Ethereum climbing 36%, leading to a 25% quarter-on-quarter growth in total cryptocurrency market capitalization. Naturally, the DeFi sector followed this upward momentum, with total locked value surpassing $200 billion, achieving a 28% quarter-on-quarter increase.
Observing the total locked value performance of major blockchains, most chains recorded steady growth, except for Tron, which saw a decline of 8%. In terms of market share, Ethereum still dominates the DeFi sector with an absolute advantage, accounting for 62% of total TVL, followed by Solana at 10%.
The standout this quarter is Hyperliquid L1, whose TVL surged by 547%. This high-performance Layer1 blockchain is designed for on-chain perpetual contracts and spot trading, utilizing a HyperBFT consensus model inspired by HotStuff.
We also investigated the most active decentralized applications in DeFi for Q2 2025, delving into the currently highest user participation areas.
Ultimately, we analyzed the influx of investments into the DeFi sector this quarter. This sector raised a total of $483 million, a decline of 50% compared to Q1. So far in 2025, DeFi projects have secured approximately $1.4 billion in financing. Although this figure indicates a slowdown compared to the explosive growth seen in past cycles, it still shows a stable interest in funding for the sector, which may imply a more mature capital allocation direction. Let’s see how the trend develops in the rest of this year, but for now, it seems that the trend is stabilizing.
3. NFT sales surged 78%, but trading volume declined: RWA and gaming lead the market shift.
We all hope the NFT market can experience a revival. Although overall attention remains, some core data is still not optimistic. This quarter, NFT trading volume plummeted by 45%, while transaction volume surged by 78%. This corroborates our long-term observation: NFTs are becoming increasingly affordable, yet market enthusiasm has not waned; rather, it has shifted in nature.
To better understand the reasons behind this transition, we have sorted the highest trading volume NFT categories for this quarter, revealing an interesting phenomenon: new narratives are emerging while old narrative patterns are making a comeback.
Data shows that trading volume for personal avatar NFTs has been hit hard, plummeting 72%. In contrast, real-world asset (RWA) NFTs have jumped to second place on the trading volume leaderboard with a 29% increase. While trading volume for art NFTs has decreased by 51%, the transaction volume has surged by 400%, indicating that art prices have dropped significantly, making art NFTs more accessible to ordinary buyers.
The recently returning trend is domain NFTs, with both trading volume and sales surging. This growth is primarily driven by the TON blockchain ecosystem, where Telegram users are rushing to purchase anonymous domain names based on digital numbers. Such domains do not require tying to a SIM card to associate with Telegram accounts, and this very fitting use case has evidently 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 returning.
This quarter, the average monthly NFT traders reached 668,598, a 20% increase from the previous quarter. Coupled with the phenomenon of soaring sales, this indicates that users are slowly but steadily returning to the NFT space, even if their motivations may differ from those in past booms.
Despite the significant drop in trading volume, OpenSea remains in the lead. However, its sales have risen alongside the Courtyard platform. This surge for OpenSea is closely related to the upcoming launch of the SEA token. This 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 accumulate points in hopes of maximizing future rewards, a classic maneuver seen in other airdrop activities.
Meanwhile, the Courtyard platform has rapidly risen to the second position in the industry. This clearly indicates that the RWA narrative 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 of real-world assets may become a key catalyst in pushing NFTs into the mainstream.
We also investigated which product series dominated in Q2 2025, and the data showed an unexpected shift.
After quite a long time (possibly years), a gaming NFT collection has topped the quarterly trading volume leaderboard for the first time. Guild of Guardians not only made it to the top five but secured two positions, surpassing blue-chip projects like CryptoPunks and Bored Apes. This confirms the overall trend we have observed: Q2 NFT market activity is primarily driven by RWA and gaming assets. Now, we finally have data to support this assertion.
4. Losses of $6.3 billion due to vulnerability attacks in Q2 represent one of the worst quarters since the FTX collapse.
We had hoped that after so many years, the entire industry would have learned lessons and remained vigilant, treating user funds more cautiously and achieving a certain level of mature development. Unfortunately, the reality this quarter is quite the opposite. In Q2 2025, the Web3 sector lost $6.3 billion due to hacker attacks and security vulnerabilities, a 215% increase from the previous quarter, marking one of the most severe loss records since the FTX collapse.
If there is a glimmer of hope, albeit extremely faint, it is that 87% of the losses stem from a single event: the Mantra crash. From certain perspectives, this could be a positive signal: there were only 31 security incidents throughout the year, indicating that the severity of a single case has inflated the overall losses. That said, it raises the question: are we truly building safer and more reliable products, or are we merely relying on luck to avoid disaster?
To elaborate, the top five events this quarter are as follows:
Mantra insider selling event (April 13, 2025): Mantra's token OM price plummeted over 90%, resulting in a $5.5 billion market cap evaporation. This incident was confirmed to be caused by coordinated insider selling, rather than a technical vulnerability in the smart contract.
Individual user private key theft incident (April 28, 2025): A personal user's crypto wallet was stolen of 3,520 bitcoins (approximately $330.7 million) due to a social engineering attack.
Cetus Protocol hacker incident (May 22, 2025): A mainstream DEX in the Sui ecosystem was attacked, with $260 million stolen, causing the platform's token price to plummet by over 90%, and smart contract activities were forced to pause.
Nobitex exchange hacker incident (June 18, 2025): The Iranian cryptocurrency exchange Nobitex suffered a hacker attack, resulting in losses exceeding $82 million. The pro-Israel hacker group Gonjeshke Darande claimed responsibility for the attack and threatened to leak the platform's internal code and user data.
Regarding the UPCX protocol vulnerability incident that occurred on April 1, 2025: The attacker infiltrated the ProxyAdmin smart contract, executing illegal upgrades and abusing administrative privileges, draining funds from three management accounts in three transactions, stealing a total of 18.4 million UPC (approximately $70 million).
This is truly disheartening. It makes you question how much progress we have actually made. Yet, at the same time, we know many projects are actively advancing more robust security infrastructure, audits, and emergency response plans.
As developers, investors, and users, the most we can do is to prioritize safety, stay informed, and act prudently.
Use tools like DappRadar to verify the projects you interact with. Although this is not always foolproof, it is a good starting point.
5. Conclusion
As Q2 2025 comes to a close, DApps are clearly entering a new phase, marked by integration and transformation. Although overall activity (referring to daily active wallet numbers) remains stable at around 24 million, we are witnessing a clear shift in user behavior and the dominant areas of the industry. Driven by emerging narratives such as InfoFi and the AI agent economy, AI and social Dapps are rapidly rising. The NFT sector is also undergoing a transformation, with RWA and gaming assets taking the lead, indicating that the field is experiencing a directional shift from speculative hype to practical value.
Even as capital cools, DeFi maintains its core pillar status with strong total locked value growth and price recovery. However, the surge in losses due to exploitations sends a stark reminder to the industry: the lack of reliable security measures may hinder its development.
It is evident that users have not left this field; they have merely chosen different ways to experience it. The current challenge lies in building Dapps that are both attractive and ensure safety, sustainability, and real value creation. We will closely monitor these future developments and continue to provide in-depth reports.