According to one report According to Binance Research, decentralized applications (dApps) represented 12 of the top 15 protocols in October, at $164 million.
This suggests growing adoption of blockchain, fueled by trading bots and decentralized exchanges.
The report highlighted that dApp interactions have steadily increased in recent months, surpassing the fourth most popular blockchains: Tron, Ethereum and Solana. Together, these three networks brought in $182 million in monthly revenue.
The growing value captured by dApps signals a potential takeover by these protocols of the largest revenue share currently controlled by blockchains.
Speculation that drives revenue
The report highlighted that DEX and trading bot-related dApps were the top revenue generators due to the recent increase in speculative trading of memecoins.
Memecoin launcher Pump.fun and trading bot Photon, both Solana-based applications, generated $29 million in revenue last month.
The list of dApps with the largest revenues recorded in October includes four other trading bots: Trojan, BONKbot, Maestro and Banana Gun. Together with Photon, these applications generated $67 million in monthly revenue, almost 41% of the total recorded by dApps.
Uniswap recorded $16 million in revenue, followed by PancakeSwap and Aerodrome’s $10 million and $9 million, respectively.
The combined fee value collected by DEX and trading bots exceeds $100 million, highlighting that users prefer trading-related dApps.
In addition to trading applications, the report also mentioned the Aave and Sky (former Maker) money markets, which received $26 million in fees. Liquid staking protocol Lido rounds out the list of 12 dApps with the largest revenue in October, with $7 million looted.
Overfinancing of infrastructure
The report also questions whether infrastructure projects, such as layer-1 and layer-2 blockchains, are overfunded given the fees collected by dApps.
According to Rootdata, projects to build infrastructure in the blockchain industry have been received more than 1.2 billion dollars in funding between December 2019 and October 2024. The amount exceeds the combined funds committed to DeFi, tooling and gaming applications.
Despite arguing that these infrastructure investments are essential, the report asserted that new applications seeking product market fit are fundamental to attracting new users and boosting the blockchain industry.