An Empirical Study of Blockchain-based Decentralized Applications

Abstract: A decentralized application (dapp for short) refers to an application that is executed by multiple users over a decentralized network. In recent years, the number of dapp keeps fast growing, mainly due to the popularity of blockchain technology. Despite the increasing importance of dapps as a typical application type that is assumed to promote the adoption of blockchain, little is known on what, how, and how well dapps are used in practice. In addition, the insightful knowledge of whether and how a traditional application can be transformed to a dapp is yet missing. To bridge the knowledge gap, this paper presents a comprehensive empirical study on an extensive dataset of 734 dapps that are collected from three popular open dapp marketplaces, i.e., ethereum, state of the dapp, and DAppRadar. We analyze the popularity of dapps, and summarize the patterns of how smart contracts are organized in a dapp. Based on the findings, we draw some implications to help dapp developers and users better understand and deploy dapps.