Distributed Apps: Few Users, But Is This Just the Beginning?

Cryptovest

Published Jun 19, 2018 08:34AM ET

Distributed Apps: Few Users, But Is This Just the Beginning?

The state of distributed apps, or dApps, is worrying. There are a lot of good idea - but only a handful of working projects. Most are at the idea stage, and have a smart contract at their centre. However, even the best-used dApps see only a handful of active accounts.

https://twitter.com/WeissRatings/status/1006943060280971265

Beyond the wildest days after its launch, CryptoKitties now attracts a few hundred users worldwide. The pessimistic take is that dApps are doomed to fail. For others, however, distributed apps are just taking off, and a sudden success story is still not out of the question.

The DApp Radar service tracks the leading categories of applications. Those include casinos, games, decentralized marketplaces, and other projects such as distributed exchanges. But the current picture shows that some of the largest, best publicized online casino projects in fact have only a handful of active users. The Edgeless casino , a project with a $36 million market capitalization, has 10 active users tracked at a point in time.

The current state of dApps is not to announce that the industry has ended before it began - but that out of a sea of good ideas and with developers joining all the time, there is a failure to reach a wider market.

Some of the reasons are technological - mobile devices do not yet communicate well with blockchains. Even well-padded companies like Kik have had trouble integrating an Ethereum-based token into a chat app, and chose instead to move their in-game communication to the Stellar protocol, sacrificing decentralization for speed and usability.

For projects like DApp Radar, as well as State of the DApps, and other trackers, however, this is a dynamic marketplace, with trends constantly shifting around the hot new products. And even if users and marketing are still a problem, the marker of developer teams approaching dApps with high hopes remains positive.

https://twitter.com/WeissRatings/status/1008713482731212800

There is also a deeper battle going on, as platforms unleash various forms of consensus and capacities. For now, Ethereum remains the leader - but platforms like NEO, TRON, QTUM, VeChain, and others, will expect to see their own ecosystem of dApps or smart contracts. Network speed and the cheapness of running a dApp would also be crucial. For now, despite the big promises, EOS-based dApps will have to prove they are viable.

When it comes to marketing, a lot of dApp projects that promise a product rely on token holders to be their client. But even with airdrops, finding a wide enough and loyal audience, compared to traditional apps, is difficult.


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