It appears that decentralized apps (DApps) may not be all they’re cracked up to be. Dapps are not only cumbersome to work with and aren’t attracting users, but they could also be home to an egregious amount of bot traffic. Blockchain analytics firm AnChain has released a report that shows that virtually all of the traffic associated with DApps is driven by bots.
It’s a known fact that DApps have not been able to pool the level of users that had been anticipated. Decentralized exchanges, as well, are not performing up to par, suffering from low liquidity, unmanageable user experiences and high latency that can hurt financially when it comes time to complete a transaction.
The lack of adoption comes down to the realization that there is not enough of a value proposition associated with the apps to make them more advantageous than regular smartphone apps. CryptoKitties is a good example, becoming extremely popular when first launched, but that novelty has now worn off. Where some assets in the game once went for hundreds of thousands of dollars, now it’s hard to get even $1 for one.
AnChain shows that, on February 11 of this year, 93% of Ethereum DApps registered no transactions. In addition, the firm asserts that the majority of the statistics regarding DApps are coming from bots, not from real people.
To reach its conclusion, AnChain studied transactions related to DApps using sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI). It is reportedly the largest study on DApps undertaken to date, analyzing “millions of transactions” associated with the top ten EOS gambling DApps. These apps account for about 65% of all the transactions on the EOS blockchain.
The results of the analysis show that, in the first quarter of this year, bots comprised 51% of all unique accounts and over 75% of all transactions. AnChain offers, “In other words, every day the equivalence of $6 million USD in transaction volume is driven by bad bots.
AnChain only reviewed the EOS blockchain for its study, given that the network “EOS is the #1 DApp blockchain with $480 million in weekly transaction volume.” However, now that light has been shed on a major DApp bot problem, it could target the Ethereum network. It shouldn’t take too long to analyze Vitalik Buterin’s platform – Ethereum has more DApps than the other blockchains, but most have not been adopted by users.
Perhaps this limited adoption is based on low network speeds. According to a tweet by “Jodibelair,” “[Deficiencies] in Ethereum make the case for [Bitcoin SV]:
“dApps have gotten little traction. Limited storage and speed mean Ethereum is fine for hosting a card game or a collectible item, but no good for the high-octane gaming of today.”
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