New DeFi Wallets Grow Rapidly, Ethereum Itself Lags Behind

While attention in the crypto market often gravitates towards memecoin chains, research from Santiment shows that real growth in new wallets is happening elsewhere: among DeFi tokens on Ethereum. Uniswap takes the crown with 87% more new addresses in the week of 25 to 31 August compared with the average of 3 to 17 August. Ethereum itself is faring worse than it did three weeks ago.

In brief:

• Uniswap, Aave and Chainlink are attracting considerably more new wallets than earlier this month.
• Ethereum has seen the number of new addresses fall by 8% compared with three weeks ago.
• Santiment notes that new addresses are easy to create and do not always represent genuine new users.

DeFi tokens far ahead of Ethereum itself

According to Santiment data, Uniswap (UNI) showed the strongest growth, with 87% more new addresses over the past week. Aave follows with 46% and Chainlink with 43%. Solana registered a gain of 32%.

Ethereum itself paints a different picture. The network has 8% fewer new addresses than three weeks ago, which stands in stark contrast to the DeFi tokens running on that same network. Ethereum is currently trading at $2.375.

Caveat on the growth figures

Santiment itself points out that new addresses are cheap and easy to create. Part of the growth can be explained by users creating a wallet because of reward programmes or other incentives, rather than because they are becoming active in crypto for the first time.

Nevertheless, Santiment sees a clear pattern in the data: newcomers are more likely to choose DeFi applications over the base layer itself. As the company puts it: headlines go to chains, wallets go to apps. Whether this will lead to structurally higher usage cannot yet be determined from the new address figures. Those who wish to review the full data can do so at Sanbase.