Blockchain activity rises in April as P2E games and NFTs get back on track

April was a busy month for the cryptocurrency industry, with a number of positive initiatives and developments in the month proving that the industry is still moving forward despite the overall drop in cryptocurrency prices. A new report from DappRadar shows that blockchain activity increased in April, with play-for-play and NFT back on track, even though Yuga Labs' Otherside NFT brings the best and worst of the cryptocurrency and Ethereum ecosystems.

The report, shared with CNF, shows that the number of daily unique active wallets interacting with any decentralized app (dApp) exceeded march levels. In April, the number was 2.36 million, with BNB Chain (formerly Binance Smart Chain) and Wax leading the way with 568,000 and 492,000 unique daily active wallets.

Hive and Polygon are the other major players in this category. Notably, Solana saw the biggest increase in inactive users, with Solana dApps seeing a 58% increase in active users in April to exceed 100,000 for the first time ever. Orca Finance, its largest decentralized exchange (DEX), is the most active.

That growth has persisted despite another disruption to Solana. On April 30, it halted operations for more than eight hours due to “a programmatic issue with the Metaplex Candy Machine.” Most Solana NFT projects use this machine to publish their collections. The most worrying aspect of the blackout was that it was the seventh of its kind this year.

With Moonbird and Solana NFT making big gains, NFT is back on track

The DappRadar report further shows that NFT had another great month in April, despite being said to be a passing fad.

The NFT market appears to have recovered from its cooling-off period since mid-February. For the third time in history, monthly transactions exceeded $6 billion ($6.3 billion), up 23 percent from March.

The beleaguered Mr Solana is one of the biggest winners. As CNF reports, its NFT was integrated into OpenSea, which seems to have had a big impact. DappRadar found that Solana NFT transactions jumped 91% in April to $300 million.

The Solana NFT bull market can be attributed in part to the network's integration with OpenSea, as the leading NFT market has exponentially increased the visibility of these NFTS, the report notes. It will be interesting to monitor whether Solana's integration with OpenSea affects the performance of other NFT markets in the ecosystem.

OpenSea led the way with $3.4 billion in sales, while LooksRare continued its strong run with $2.5 billion in sales, up 9% month-on-month.

Top-tier collections continue to sell the most, including Bored Ape Yacht Club, Azuki, VeeFriends, CryptoPunks, and more. However, a new drop in April also stole the show.

The first is Moonbirds, an NFT project by PROOF Collective. It generated $500 million in transactions, the highest of any collection in April. They now rank at number 11, above established series like Cool Cats and Meebits.

The top sale was the CryptoPunk, which sold for $3.2 million, and another for $1.57 million. Three Moonbirds and two Baycs also made the top 10.

While Moonbirds had the highest sales in April, it was another project that grabbed all the attention -- by Yuga Labs, Bored Ape Yacht Club series creator, Otherside. As CNF reports, the series dropped on April 30, making it one of the most anticipated NFT projects in recent times.

55,000 Otherdeeds are up for sale, and Yuga Labs ended up making $340 million from their sales. Secondary sales generated $420 million on the same day and $760 million in just 24 hours.

While this is a significant achievement, there is another side to the story -- sky-high gas prices on Ethereum. Records show that 55,000 ETH, or $150 million, were burned in the process (a record). More worryingly, the sale involved 14,000 failed transactions, resulting in a $4.5m loss in transaction fees.

Yuga Labs has announced that it will compensate those who have lost money, but this philanthropic model is not sustainable in the long run.

Other findings of the report include that DeFi total value lock-in (TVL) has shrunk by 12%, but is still 47% higher than last April. Terra continues to rise as a DeFi platform and now has $29 billion of TVL, more than double the number three BNB Chain.