After a year-long struggle to fend off the market bears, parts of the crypto ecosystem started showing signs of recovery in the third quarter of 2022. BNB Chain’s Q3 report confirms significant growth in crypto trading volumes and decentralized finance (DeFi) but a drop in nonfungible token (NFT) trading.

According to DappRadar BNB Chain Report Q3, BNB Chain retained its position as the second biggest DeFi blockchain after Ethereum (ETH), with a Total Value locked (TVL) of $7.6 billion.

On the DeFi side of things, BNB Chain suffered a 93% decrease from Q3 of 2021 but has since shown signs of steady recovery. The TVL of $7.6 billion represents a 28.67% increase from BNB Chain’s Q2 performance. The blockchain also represents 36.6% of the market share for GameFi ecosystems, which is followed by Ethereum at 20.2% and Polygon (MATIC) at 11.8%.

PancakeSwap, Venus and Alpaca Finance are among the largest in the pool of over 300 DeFi decentralized apps (DApps) hosted over BNB Chain.

“BNB chain owes this relative success to the performance of PancakeSwap,” reads the report, as the ecosystem represents 68.2% or $4.1 billion in TVL, followed by Venus at 16.3% ($995 million) and Alpaca Finance at 8.7% ($530 million).

NFT trading volumes continue to dip, with BNB Chain recording an almost 33% drop this year — from $276,000 in Q1 to $185,000 in Q3. According to the report, the unique trader's count decreased by 45% in just three months.

While the metrics shared in the DappRadar report showcase an overall positive movement for the quarter, it also revealed the need for crypto projects to achieve sustainable growth.

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