Gambling persists as a primary use case for “the blockchain” into 2019, with almost half of the top 100 decentralized apps (dapps) still betting-related.
Blockchains EOS and TRON have also solidified themselves as competitors to Ethereum this year. Together, they make up 74 percent of the top 100 dapps ranked by daily user count, according to DappRadar data reviewed by Hard Fork on May 21.
While most of the top dapps run on EOS and TRON, a majority of those platforms are online casinos that offer blackjack, roulette, and other games of chance powered by cryptocurrency.
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Indeed, 64 percent of TRON dapps featured in the top 100 were for gambling. Similarly, 51 percent of top EOS dapps allow users to bet cryptocurrency.
As far as Ethereum goes, 48 percent of its top dapps were blockchain-based games like CryptoKitties, and only 17 percent were related to gambling.
There were 74,567 dapp users on May 21
DappRadar data indicates these casino dapps are still very popular with users, as well as blockchain-based app developers.
On May 21, 33 percent of all users of top 100 dapps were cryptocurrency gamblers over the preceding 24 hours.
Interestingly, dapps categorized as “Other” seem to attract the most users, despite the amount of blockchain-based casinos currently operating.
These appear to be designed purely to distribute blockchain-based tokens in a variety of ways, such as rewarding users for posting and interacting with content.
Earlier this year, cryptocurrency gamblers (and their dapps) left the Ethereum en masse to gamble their digital assets on rival blockchains EOS and TRON.
A few months later, TRON founder Justin Sun urged dapp developers to refrain from launching gambling dapps in Japan to appease local regulators, but it’s still unclear whether those calls were effective.
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