The first quarter of 2025 was a turbulent period for Web3, in which AI and Social Dapps were given traction while the decentralized finances suffered a sharp decline.
The total value locked in Defi fell by 27% to $ 156 billion, as according to the Q1 2025 from D -Appadar report. The decline of Defi was caused by various controversial infringements of security, falling crypto prices and macro-economic uncertainty.
The biggest blow was bybit’s exploit of $ 1.4 billion, connecting the FBI with the Tradertraitor Group from Noord -Korea. In this exploit steel hackers around 401,000 Ethereum (ETH), it converted it into Bitcoin (BTC) and other assets and divided it under portfolios.
The position of Defi was further influenced by a decrease in the ETH of 45% in the quarter. Apart from Berachain (Bera), who grew as a result of the launch of the mainnet, a tokend distribution event and a financing round of $ 142 million, most large block chains saw a decrease in Defi activity.
While Defi struggled, AI-driven Dapps flourished, as evidenced by the 29% increase in daily unique active portfolios to 2.6 million. Moreover, the number of social dapps grew by 10% to 2.8 million DUAW. This shift was largely due to sites such as Pump.Fun, making it easier for users to launch new tokens. Pomp.Fun saw an increase of 112% in the activity.
NFTS also had a weaker quarter, with a fall in trade volume from 24% to $ 1.5 billion. However, the fact that sales only fell by 10%points to lower prices instead of a massive output. PFP collections were good for the majority of sales, which made 56% of the total NFT volume. OpenSea remained the most popular marketplace in terms of transactions, but OKX had the highest trading volume.
In the meantime, more than $ 2 billion was lost to scams and hacks. Carpets such as Libra and Melania resulted in losses of $ 450 million, but Bybit’s $ 1.5 billion exploit was by far the largest security breakage event. A $ 50 million hack from the Infini Stablecoin platform has also exposed underlying security errors in the industry.
