2019 is quickly coming to a close. Here, we look back at the year that was, with a list of top dapps, the best builders, and the special whatevers from around the decentralized world.

Let us walk you through the Dapp.com 2019 retrospective — from DeFi, BApp, and beyond — the dapps that defined the year.

The Dapps That DeFi’ed the Year

DeFi movement was started in late 2018 and DeFi dapps are thriving in 2019. Some quick stats summarize the overall DeFi ecosystem so far:

More than $525 million flowed through DeFi in Q3, according to our Quarterly Market Report
DeFi dapps have contributed over 58% of the volume of Ethereum dapps in Q3
$650 million has locked in DeFi

We have seen the MakerDao’s stablecoin Dai is getting more popular and becoming a global currency; Dharma provides the best interest rate; Compound allows people to earn interest on, or borrow Ethereum-based assets; ETHLend enables lenders and borrowers to create peer-to-peer lending agreements; Besides AirSwap, IDEX, Poloni, LocalCryptos, and other well-known decentralized exchanges, more and more new DEXs have emerged this year, such as Uniswap and dYdX.

“DeFi has brought traditional financial instruments to an open and decentralized ecosystem, allowing the creation of many innovative applications and use cases that remove the need for a middleman. 2019 is indeed a good year for DeFi. Popular projects including Nuo, Fulcrum, InstaDApp, DeFiSaver, and Melon all experiencing great progress! We also witnessed the launch of Maker’s Multi-collateral DAI — an important element in the DeFi space today. Kyber is glad to support the space by connecting decentralized liquidity to provide the best available token rates for takers.“ — Shane Hong from Kyber Network

Our future wealth manager will be on the blockchain and the DeFi ecosystem momentum excites us most!

The Dapps Transform Everything Apps into Dapps

Last year, we talked about why people should choose dapps over apps and why we keep “kicking” your habit of using regular apps… and even “forcing” you to pay gas fees on much slower dapps.

Well, it is a tough job, but things have changed in 2019. The notion of decentralization is not associated with chaos anymore, because dapp builders have realized that it is hard for you to ditch Google Maps without any alternatives, so they built a dapp version of “Google Maps” for you, and they know your life can’t live without Gmail, so they built a Dmails… Many more dapp are here now to replace G Suite (Google Drive, Docs, all of it), Booking.com, Survey Monkey, Evernote, and even Product Hunt, it has a dapp version too. These dapps make your transition to the “decentralized safe zone” effortless and immediate, and also make our job much easier.

The Dapps That Master Our Daily Life

Dapp builders are keeping build amazing dapps. Every week, dozens of new dapps joining the Dapp.com community and bringing users privacy, security, and digital freedom. We don’t want our data to become the new oil. We don’t want to “live in a better life” by giving up our data dignity. As for dapps like Blockstack dapps, Klaytn BApps, and others, you can use them on a daily basis — from the moment you wake up until you go to bed at night, and most importantly, those dapps give you the power to control your data.

You can use NoteRiot to capture your every inspiration; you can choose Unstoppable Domains to replace centralized domain with a human-readable one; Dmails respects your privacy; Travala is a crypto-friendly platform with great hotel deals; try Arcane Maps, if you don’t want Google to know where you have been; conduct a pool? BlockSurvey can help; organizing a community? Mumble can offer something better than Discord and Slack; you can be a hippie traveler and get around with Hawk, the e-scooter…

Now, dapps can help you to establish new daily (and possibly life-changing) habits, discover new friends and communities, and of course, take back your privacy.

The Dapps with Mainstream Attention

This year, more games are being built around some of the most recognized IPs in the industry, such as F1 Delta — the car racing game had its first NFT “1-1-1” auction in May and it sold for 419.5 ETH (worth roughly $100k at the time of sale), NBA Top Shot by Dapper Labs, Star Trek by CryptoSpaceCommanders, Power Rangers is getting rebooted on the blockchain by Animoca Brands. So, we will be expecting to see more die-hard F1 fans or NBA lovers joining the blockchain game from just watching live race game or dunking basketball.

Alexis Ohanian, the co-founder of Reddit also joined the “blockchain gaming club” earlier this year by investing in a TCG game, SkyWeaver. If you are a fan of Alexis, you will have a very high chance of facing him off in the game!

The Dapps That Revolutionize Social Media

The biggest selling point for such social dapps is letting users take control of their own data and get paid for their contributions. This year, many platforms like Steemit and others have also been working on enhancing their user experience so that it will become as seamless as any other mainstream applications.

While the decentralized social network is facing the challenge of scaling up, it is for sure a breath of fresh air in the crypto space and a good attempt to introduce the power of blockchain technology to the mass. We couldn’t help but wonder — will social media dapp become the next big thing in the next decade?

If you are still in the “let’s wait and see” camp for social dapp, maybe 2020 is the time to give it a go. As Block.one disclosed that they are aiming to launch their EOS-based social network Voice this coming February, we are expecting an influx of new users to the space of crypto-based social platforms like Steemit, Minds, Cent, Antube, and more.

The Dapps That Brought the Social Media Influencers to the Decentralized World

A big piece of news came out in April — “the most popular YouTuber PewDiePie will be joining DLive and stream exclusively content”. Then all of a sudden, mainstream media (we are talking about The New York Times and Variety here) reported the news and not just talked about DLive dapp, but also mentioned the benefit of using the blockchain and more — you know, it was like something or someone went from “nobody” to “somebody” overnight.

A look at Lino Network, the company behind the popular streaming platform DLive, showed great results after bringing PewDiePie to its platform — it surpasses all the other dapps with over 4,500 daily unique active users (as of 12/19) and more than 100,000 unique users in total.

The other decentralized live-streaming platforms like LBRY also provides special programs that support YouTubers, content creators, and influencers to migrate from mainstream social channels to the decentralized ones.

More Dapps Are Empowering the Creative Market

We are always looking for something new to feed our creative souls.

Earlier this year, we collaborated with The Creative Crypto Magazine — the first magazine powered by Steem blockchain, and we hosted AMA together and invited people from Portion — a decentralized exchange for art and collectibles, to share insights from the crypto art world.

Besides the digital art marketplaces like SuperRare and KnownOrigin that we are already familiar with, more art and creative dapps came out this year, such as MakersPlace, Breaker, Audius, BitPatron, and more. They are leveraging the technology, making the creative work more accessible, helping creators to get a fair share, and protecting the copyright.

As we are writing this right now, SuperRare just hit the sales record with a bid of 72.1 ETH ($10,027.5). Meanwhile, the crypto market stays bear-ish, the crypto art market is going strong!

The Dapp Games That Stay Classic

We are no doubt that the gaming dapps still have the highest adoption of consumer blockchain solutions and there are 685 games (as of 12/19) listed on Dapp.com. Games that launched a year ago, such as Gods Unchained, Splinterlands (they rebranded from Steem Monsters this year), and of course, CryptoKitties stay classic.

When looking at the most popular dapp games, CryptoKitties is the one that needs little introduction. The Kitties continue leading their way to inspire the decentralized space and this year, the team brought us Cheeze Wizards, a battle royale with a “cheesy” concept.

WINk is the rebrand of TRONBet, the first and arguably the most popular dapp launched on the TRON, and has been staying on the top 5 dapps for months. Although seen as an adult game played by people in a gambling capacity, WINk does not involve huge investment and is perfect for those who are just looking for a relaxing game for a gloomy rainy day.

The Dapps That Bring Back the Major Nostalgia

Remember Astro Boy, Super Mario, Bomb Sweep, and other blockbuster games? Now games like My Crypto Heroes, BlockArcade, JustSnake, and more are bringing back the nostalgic feeling to us in a crypto way.

When detailing classic gaming dapps, it makes sense to include one of the best-selling Ethereum games of all time – My Crypto Heroes. Added recently the famous character Astro Boy into its character list, MCH always amazes us with its artistic mind. Although this game might be a bit hard for beginners to jump straight into, the novelty and excitement that can be garnered from the in-game characters make this unique dapp a worthy purchase.

Nintendo fans who are looking to relive their long-lost childhood memories should look no further than The Ledger of Szabo. Inspired by the classic The Legend of Zelda, the “Szabo” is an 8-bit puzzle game that utilizes Ethereum and Bitcoin Lightning to provide a unique gaming experience. We hope this dapp can bring more nostalgic Nintendo fans into the crypto world in the upcoming year.

With all the fancy and action-packed online games out there, it can be easy to forget things of a simple nature such as the snake games. That is why we are so excited to see the introduction of games like JustSnake to the blockchain space in 2019. Powered by the Blockstack network, players can access the game with ease by signing into their Blockstack account. Ease of use and a lot of excitement and nostalgia is what makes JustSnake one of our favorite Blockstack games this year.

The Dapps Make the Dapp World More NFTier

This year of NFT space started with a groundbreaking collaboration between Gods Unchained and CryptoKitties. It showed a great deal of blockchain’s unique feature — interoperability. Later on, we have seen more projects working together, such as CryptoKitties and Crypt-Oink with a rare Kitton, Battle Racers teamed up with Neon District and Axie Infinity for crossover NFTs, and Axie partnered with The SandBox for developing a new racing game…

Dapp games like Blockchain Cuties and 0xGames have integrated with multiple blockchains, aiming to bring more gamers together from different communities.

OpenSea is still people’s favorite go-to marketplace for trading digital items. Back in October, we had our first auction event on OpenSea and welcome everyone to bid on rare NFTs with our DAPPT.

The Go-To Dapps

The community-driven dapps like Everipedia and Steemhunt play very important roles in our everyday life. They keep us educated and inspired.

As the largest decentralized knowledge database, Everipedia continues providing information and resources. In October, they rolled out a mobile version that allows you to edit and vote from your phone. Steemhunt debuted a new platform called Reviewhunt, so product enthusiasts can dig out and review new products while earning cryptos.

Dapps for Your Fun Folder

Did you know? Dapps also can bring more laughter into your life, and more importantly, without taking away your data. LOL Hunt, a dapp for the top funniest YouTube clips just launched on Blockstack recently and now we can finally say “let’s LOL and chill”.

And how can we forget about the most sh*ttiest coin — ShitCoin, it is a simulation game, a meme, a parody, and an ERC-20 token that makes sure you will have a pure shitcoin experience with a shi*tload of fun;)

Secreth Santa is the new dapp that allows you to distribute NFTs. With Secreth Santa, gift-giving can be so much fun in this holiday season! And if you like playing drawing games with friends, Dcasso Duel will be your new obsession.

The Dapp That Saw the Most Users in One Day

Cosmochain is a Klaytn-based dapp that connects customers and companies through a mutually beneficial beauty ecosystem. On November 27, Comochain had 175,198 users in one day, which made it the one that has the largest number of daily users in history.

The Dapp with the Largest Daily Transaction Volume

888TRON reached 3,633,628,139 TRX transaction volume on March 15, with a price of $0.022946 USD/TRX the same day on CoinGecko and valued at $83,375,513.37. 888TRON contributed a significant volume on March 15, which was the day that TRON dapp volume spiked (the total volume was around $91 million), and it was way beyond the historical highest record of Ethereum and EOS dapps.

The Dapp with the Fastest Growth

Dapp.com Ranking is the way that we measure the health of a dapp by collecting and monitoring its activity and performance. Users can rely on the ranking score to get to know more about the dapp. According to our ranking, Betfury has been growing exponentially in the past two months and becoming the project with the fastest growth rate. Since its launch on November 2, Betfury has scored over 94.71 out of 100, the highest one was 95.37 on December 16.

The Dapp with the Tremendous Total Transaction Volume

TRON is one of the fastest-growing dapp ecosystems in 2019 and WINk can represent the TRON community as a whole. Until today (as of 12/19), WINk has contributed $2,354,088,312.05 transaction volume. As for a project with 66,772 users, it is quite extraordinary.

The Dapp With the Largest Number of Transactions

The EIDOS’ infamous airdrop causes congestion on the network. Until today (as of 12/19), EIDOS has had 1,580,070,115 transactions on the EOS blockchain with a total of 11,704 unique users. Although some of us are still “suffering” from the CPU crisis, we don’t get to judge the good or bad of this case. We would rather stay on the positive side and focus on our Dapp Store — try our best to contribute something valuable and meaningful to the EOS ecosystem.

Dapps that Dapp.com Community ❤

Last month, we gave Dapp.com a major facelift while continually being open and having our community involved more in building the dapp ecosystem. People can support their favorite dapps by leaving comments and reviews and it is still the best way for the community to surface great dapps that might otherwise remain under the radar.

Dapps like CryptoKitties, Kyber Network, Endless Games, WINk, EOS Bet, Ethermon, EOS Knights, IDEX, Newdex, Trust Dice are the top 10 dapps that have the most page views. And CryptoKitties has the most comments so far — there are 727 comments and reviews on its page, following by Ethermon, Kyber Network, and Decentraland, they all have more than 100 comments!

This article is originally published on Dapp.com on December 22, 2019.