Ultimate Guide to dApps - Everything You Need to Know

Top 10 Most Popular dApps in Cryptocurrency

Uniswap V2 (ETH) – $3.02T
Uniswap V3 (Ethereum, Optimism, Polygon) – $1.27B
Curve (Ethereum, Polygon) – $251.61M
ApeSwap (BNB Chain, Polygon) – $154.99M
PancakeSwap (BNB Chain) – $102.97M
Mimas Finance (Cronos) – $97.44M
Biswap (BNB Chain) – $78.79M
Raydium (SOLANA) – $75.88M
Venus (BNB Chain) – $48.83M
Tectonic (Cronos) – $48.29M

The Case for Dapps

As of mid-June 2022, there were about 4,070 Decentralized applications (dApps) with a scope ranging from gaming, gambling, governance, identity, finance, media, and more.

Even amid crypto’s sustained bear market in 2022, dApp games continue to remain popular. Research from the end of June found how crypto game usage remained at about 1.15 million unique active wallets per day from November 2021.

Security, Security, Security

dApps offer significant security benefits over centralized apps due to the immutability and transparency of blockchain technology. Blockchain transactions are unable to be altered or edited and can be reviewed by anyone interested in a paper trail. Additionally, the lack of a single point of failure among dApps boosts dApp resiliency and mitigates the risks of hacks.

Resisting Censorship

dApps are censorship-resistant as there’s no central authority to govern who uses the app and how interactions take place. Blockchain systems guarantee rules governing a particular protocol are fairly applied to everyone. The mitigation of censorship is one of the biggest advantages dApps have over centralized apps.
Learn more about decentralized and centralized apps differences.

Full Trust

dApps users can have full trust in the network as code governs the infrastructure, not an outside third-party or central figure.

Say Goodbye To Downtime

As dApps do not have a centralized server, it’s impossible for the entire network to fail or go down at the same time. The network can still continue even if a portion is temporarily knocked out as it’s distributed across user computers.

How to Earn Money Through Your dApp?

Unsurprisingly, the popularity of dApps has led many entrepreneurs, innovators, and crypto enthusiasts to shift their thinking from ‘why do we need dApps‘ to trying to figure out how they can develop blockchain apps and make money with dApps.

Overall, the Ethereum blockchain remains one of the most popular architectures for dApp development.

Before understanding how dApps make money and how innovators within the space profit, it is vital to have a grasp on the differences between traditional apps and dApps when it comes to revenue generation.

How Do Decentralized Apps Make Money?

Crowdsale and Token Launch

A tried and true revenue generation method is to develop a project idea and then raise capital through a crowdsale that is backed by a token.

Developers and project leaders looking to embark on the crowdsale route need to be prudent with dApp development and be clear to potential users about its functionality, advantages, and unique attributes. Development teams also need to be transparent about token distribution and cultivate a loyal following as much as they can.

Transaction Fees

Some dApp developers make money through transaction fees, which can be particularly lucrative if the application is popular and heavily used. For example, if a dApp has a 10% transaction fee, that means 10% of every transaction amount will go to the platform service provider.

While transaction fees can be an easy way to make money, dApp developers need to be careful about transaction fees. If fees are too high, users might be swayed away from the platform. Even worse, too-high transaction fees could lead some to build their own version of a dApp with fewer transaction fees and then persuade users to migrate over.

Premium

Some choose to add the opportunity for premium functionality to a dApp at a particular cost. For example, a gaming dApp could entice users to pay for boosts, special equipment, or level advancements for a fee in digital currency.

Subscription

Subscriptions are very popular in the traditional world but do have a place within DeFi. Some dApp developers choose to offer special premium access or functionality that can be accessed by subscription. The subscription-based model is desirable as creators have ‘guaranteed’ income as subscribers sign up and renew. Subscriptions can either be usage based, where a certain feature or attribute has a limited number of uses, or time-based, where users could turn to an enhancement for a particular set duration. Developers need to be wise and carefully consider which subscription model would work best.

Advertisements are still somewhat of a novel concept within the blockchain world as a tool for monetization. However, they can be effective ways for dApps developers to make money.

Donations

Soliciting donations might not work for every platform, but can be a particularly useful strategy for dApp projects that intend to tackle a social cause or issue of concern. Some developers place a ‘donate’ button within the dApp itself, on the project website, and on applicable social media platforms to raise awareness.

Create Digital Goods

The creation of digital goods like NFTs is another useful strategy for dApp monetization. For example, the developers of the popular CryptoKitties platform originally gave Generation 0 NFT kitties for users to keep as a collectible item.

As the cute NFTs became more popular, additional users flowed into the CryptoKitties platform who were ready to buy, sell, trade, and ultimately help expand the entire ecosystem.

This list includes effective ways to help developers make money off of dApp development.

It’s always prudent for developers to study their target markets and conduct smart research to decide what strategies might work based on revenue generation goals and user interests.

Referral Marketing

Referral marketing has made big waves within traditional e-commcerce, but has also made an impact within the dApp world.

Several platforms allow users to promote a particular website and then get paid based on referred traffic. Since the crypto world is one where the community can make-or-break a project, effective referral marketing endeavors can lead to massive financial returns.