PANews Report: Dapp User Statistics of Ethereum, EOS and TRON Revealing the Faces behind the Scenes

To offer data-driven advices for founders, developers and marketing teams, the study leverages AARRR (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue and Referral) metrics to analyze users’ conversion behavioral data within the DApp ecosystems, their corresponding operation strategies and performances.

Analyst: Carol | Data Partner: DAppTotal

Translator: Freesia | Editor: Tong

Recently, PANews released the report “AARRR” of DApps: User Statistics of Three Leading Public Blockchains Ethereum, EOS and TRON. To offer data-driven advices for founders, developers and marketing teams, the study leverages AARRR (Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue and Referral) metrics to analyze users’ conversion behavioral data within the DApp ecosystems, their corresponding operation strategies and performances.

PANews Report Finds out:

● TRON DApps saw more distributed signups with the DNU (Daily New Users) of each DApp at an average of 45, among which Exchanges is the most attractive category.

● EOS gained the highest average DAU (Daily Active Users) of all time. The average DAU of each DApp on EOS is exceeding 1,045, with the most used DApps being exchanges and dGames.

● DApps users of EOS may contain up to 36% of bots.

● Over 60% of users of Ethereum DApps users launched it less than 10 times per month; EOS, approximately 70% of users ran the DApps more than 10 times per month, of which over 14% of them are “extremely active users” who use over 100 times; 80% of TRON users used DApps less than 10 times per month. Most of them are only one-time users.

● DApps on EOS recorded the highest average 4-week retention ratio. The average week 1 retention ratio reached 28.57% and Week 4 retention ratio was 12.12%.

● The total monthly revenue of Gambling on EOS remarked a 2,690 million USD high and on a monthly basis an average of 42.85% users were earning. On the contrary, TRON only had 25.94% of users were earning, became the platform with the fewest earning users.

● One out of every 833 users of EOS DApps is a crypto millionaire; while for Ethereum the rate becomes one out of every 1667 users; and on TRON, this rate shrinks to one out of every 2,500 users.

● Finance built on Ethereum had the highest average user net worth, with every transaction per day per person reached $709.3 USD.

According to the study, to date there were 613 DApps remain active on Ethereum, EOS and TRON. The average survival rate of DApps on these blockchains was about 32.3%. The vast majority of DApps on each blockchain is respectively dGames for Ethereum, Gambling for EOS and High-Risk for TRON. However, they cannot represent users’ preference. Despite the quantity, they are not dominating the DNU, DAU, retention rate or ARPU (Average Purchase per User). On the contrary, Exchanges have the best performance overall.

The study also analyzed the relations between acquisition, activation and retention. The results indicate that the retention rate is not statistically dependent on acquisition (number of new users): more acquisition cannot lead to a higher retention rate. Therefore, when facing a limited user base, instead of fighting for incremental market, a more efficient approach to growth is to retain more existing users and get prepared for further transformation.

User structures of DApps’ from each blockchain was different. On Ethereum, the DApps’ structure presented a shape of slender cone with a stable bottom: the distribution of all type of users was relatively even. DApps built on Ethereum are lack of capacity to transfer new sign-ups into heavy users. Structure of DApps on EOS was larger in the middle and thinner on both sides, indicating these DApps had higher user engagement but lower ability to acquire new sign-ups. Similarly, the pyramid shaped structure of TRON’s DApps called for a more efficient way to activate new sign-ups.

The report also points out that users’ net worth could affect the operating strategy of DApps. For hitting a certain revenue threshold, DApps with higher average user net worth require less new sign-ups and alleviate the pressure on acquisition. Yet the marketing team / growth team will needs to focus on retention and conversion. On the opposite, for Dapps with lower average user net worth, the marketing team / growth team will work harder on acquisition and activation. Average user net worth can be used as a criterion to evaluate the ROI (Return of Investment).

DApps on Ethereum, EOS and TRON perform in a huge different way and all have multiple outliers on AARR (acquisition, activation, retention and revenue) metrics. To conclude, the ecosystems are not balanced and lack of a shared prosperity.

Ethereum

In general, Ethereum DApps had fewer active users and lower user activation rate. Over 60% of users launched no more than 10 times per month. dGames, who are the majority of Ethereum DApps, had relatively lower user activation rate than that of Gambling and Exchanges. In terms of user behavior, new sign-ups of dGames were attracted by few specific dGames, to take a deeper look at existing users as a whole, it became quite scattered on all kinds of dGames.

In Ethereum DApp ecosystem, user engagement is either high or low: higher in dGames and lower in Gambling, Other and Platform . A new sign-up is very likely to retain, if it hasn’t churned during the first 3 weeks. Users’ net worth is at a higher standard in DApps built on Ethereum, especially those of Finance — the average user net worth reached $709.3 USD. But Ethereum’s DApps contain fewer crypto millionaires (monthly bet over one million USD), only 1 in 1667 users among all gambling users. In the past 2 months, over 60% of gambling users were earning from the DApps. The “banker-player” relationship of Gambling is always imbalanced, implying a hard future for such DApps on Ethereum.

EOS

Both number of active users and level of user activation are high on EOS’s DApps. Over 70% users launched more than 10 times per month, in which over 14% users were “extremely active users” who launched over 100 times. The mainstream DApps are Gambling, whose users are less active than other and dGame. New sign-ups usually stick on a few certain Gambling. Old users are distributed evenly in all Gambling instead.

User engagement is fair on all EOS’s DApps. dGame has the best user engagement, followed by Gambling and Other. However, there is no such time interval to evaluate the churn of users. In other words, users churn consistently at a certain rate. User net worth varies with the categories of DApps. The differentiation is relatively large. Exchanges has the highest average user net worth of $934.8 USD while all other categories are much lower: mainstream Gambling, $89.7 USD; dGame DApps with the best user engagement, only $0.5 USD. About 40% of gambling users earn from DApps each month. 1 out of 833 users in gambling DApps is crypto millionaires, the highest rate of all three public blockchains.

TRON

TRON’ DApps have relatively more active users but over 80% of them launched less than 10 times per month. Most of them are one-time users. The mainstream High-Risk DApps have less user activation than that of Exchanges.

In general, user engagement on TRON’s DApps is the lowest of all three. Highly related to the pyramid user structure, new sign-ups churn in one month, majority of whom churn in the first two weeks. User net worth is low in all categories: Exchanges contains higher user net worth of $83.8 USD and mainstream High-Risk DApps have only $12.6 USD. Crypto millionaire users are also rear in TRON’s DApp ecosystem, at a rate of 1 over 2500 users. On a monthly basis, 75% of gambling users didn’t earn from DApps, perhaps because most retail traders had disappeared.

* The data was collected through out January 1st to April 30th of 2019.