These Are the Bear Market Benefits and Future of NFTs: DappRadar CEO (Interview)

DappRadar has quickly become one of the most popular resources for decentralized applications. Positioned as a pageless, actionable, as well as multi-chain data aggregator on a wide variety of NFT collections, dApps, DeFi projects, and so on, DappRadar has grown into a widely used destination for many industry participants.

The crypto potato had the chance to speak with Skirmantas Januškas – CEO and co-founder of DappRadar – on a variety of topics ranging from the non-fungible tokens hype play-to-earn, DeFi, the ongoing bear market and many others.

Crypt ‘Aha!’ Moment: CryptoKitties

Skirmantas co-founded DappRadar with Dunica Dragos Valentin, but their story started long before that, as they knew each other for over ten years before starting DappRadar.

Both have development backgrounds – Skirmantas used to do back-end, while Dragos used to do front-end development. They met online and started working on a few “small projects” here and there. This is where things get more interesting.

Probably seven or eight years ago, Dragos kept pinging me to do something with Bitcoin. He got into Bitcoin much earlier than I got into crypto, generally speaking. During those few years, I had the same understanding of crypto as probably most people today – you know, “I don’t get it, looks shady, I don’t get it – I don’t touch it.

He said it probably took him four or five years since he first heard about Bitcoin to really understand the power of the blockchain.

It happened when CryptoKitties – in 2017 – launched and went through the roof on high volumes. And so, at that point, as a back-end developer, I thought I needed to start understanding what smart contracts are really about.

Skirmantas shared that this was his “Aha!” moment – one he described as “mindblowing”. He looked at blockchain from a very simplistic perspective and envisioned a simple but powerful concept – fixing transparent verifiability in online poker.

Now that he and Dragos clicked on the power and potential of blockchain, the idea for DappRadar was born. Interestingly, it took three to four days from the birth of the idea to develop the first version of DappRadar and put it online. He shared that they received over 5,000 users overnight. Since then, they have expanded to a team of around 80 people, having hired 30 this year alone.

NFTs are definitely here to stay

Despite the decline in both interest, volume and valuation in some of the most popular NFT projects, Skirmantas is positive about the industry as a whole and believes they are definitely here to stay.

Also, non-fungible tokens were one of the biggest entrants to the cryptocurrency field in general, bringing in thousands of people searching for the next BAYC project. Although many of them were burned, Skirmantas claims that this was a big deal for the industry in general.

A big difference between those who joined because of NFTs and those who joined because of SHIB and other coins is that when you want to buy SHIB – you go to a centralized exchange, deposit some fiat into the account and buy the token – this has literally nothing to do with blockchain at that point. That’s because all your tokens are on a spreadsheet with Binance.

While with NFTs you have to have a wallet, you have to put some crypto in it to learn how to use MetaMask – that was a huge opportunity the market had and we saw it again.

He also says that one of the biggest challenges is the lack of information and education, which is why we are not yet at mass adoption.

“We like the bear market”

The elephant in the room is the ongoing crypto winter as prices remain well below their peaks. Speaking about the similarities and differences between the situation now and back in 2018, Skirmantas said:

I see a lot of people living this “what bear market? Prices are down, but what bear market?” narrative. I think that’s the main difference between 2018 and now.

He shared that he joined when the market was at its peak in 2017 and 2018 and that his first ETH was bought at close to $1500 and he watched it go down to the bottom. Speaking about the current situation, he revealed that it does not affect us and that:

“I would say we even like it to a certain extent because it brings a kind of clarity to the industry. It pushes away all the ‘hype’ projects and the ones that are not backed by anything. When those go away, we have plenty of time to build and focus on projects that are really valuable.”

Additionally, unlike some distressed companies in the field, the CEO said they are still hiring.

To find out his thoughts on the potential catalyst needed to spark another bull run, his overall view on the future of the industry, as well as what DappRadar has in store for its users, don’t hesitate to watch the full video above!