So, Messari put out this report on Flow’s first quarter of 2025. It gives you a good look at what’s been happening on the network. Things are moving, that’s for sure.
- Flow’s DeFi sector experienced growth, with Total Value Locked reaching $44.4 million, driven by projects like KittyPunch and MORE Markets. The network also saw a significant increase in developer activity, indicating growing interest in building on the platform.
- Daily active addresses on Flow surged during a hackathon, demonstrating the network’s scalability, although user retention post-event remains a challenge. Efforts to enhance interoperability with other blockchains through bridges like LayerZero and Axelar are expanding Flow’s reach.
- While the price of the FLOW token decreased, NFT activity remained robust, particularly with NBA Top Shot’s success on OpenSea. Flow is also progressing towards full decentralization through its Protocol Autonomy Roadmap, aiming to distribute control across various node types.
The money locked up in Flow’s DeFi (decentralized finance) stuff hit a new high. It went up 17.7% from the last three months of 2024, landing at $44.4 million. That’s like finding a bunch of money you didn’t know you had, but for a whole network. Projects like KittyPunch and MORE Markets really helped push that number up.
And get this, Flow was the fastest-growing Layer-1 (that’s a basic blockchain network, like the foundation) when you look at weekly developer growth in the first quarter. Developers are the folks building things on the chain. Their numbers grew by a big 89% compared to the quarter before. It seems like builders are finding a home here.
The developers who work on the core of Flow, the real engine room, got busier too. The average number of these core developers working each week went up 15.3% to almost 68 people. And the code changes they made, called commits, jumped 26.5% to 552. That means they weren’t just showing up; they were getting serious work done.
More people were using Flow every day, way more. Average daily active addresses, which are like unique users, shot up 144% to 66,822. That’s a massive jump. The number of average daily transactions also climbed, going up 10.6% to 277,782. So, lots more digital wallets doing things, and a decent bump in the stuff they were doing.
Part of that big jump in activity happened during a specific online event, the ETHGlobal Agentic Virtual Hackathon (a hackathon is like a coding marathon where people build new projects). During that time, transactions peaked at over half a million in a single day, and active addresses hit over 347,000. It shows the network can handle a crowd when it needs to.
After the hackathon wrapped up, the daily active addresses settled down quite a bit, ending the quarter around 7,700. That was actually lower than where it ended the previous quarter. So, while the network can scale for big events, keeping those users around afterward is the next trick. Maybe more focused events could help keep that energy going.
Connecting Flow to other blockchains got easier too. Big names in bridging, like LayerZero, Axelar, and deBridge, set up shop on Flow EVM (that’s a part of Flow that works like Ethereum, making it easier for developers from that world to build here). This links Flow up to over 100 other networks. Think of it like building new highways to and from Flow, making it simpler to move digital stuff around.
OpenSea, a really popular place to buy and sell NFTs (non-fungible tokens – basically unique digital items), also went live on Flow. Now people can trade NFTs there and even earn points using their Flow Wallet (a digital place to keep your crypto and NFTs). This is a pretty big deal for getting Flow’s digital items in front of more people.
And NBA Top Shot, which is built on Flow, did really well on OpenSea right away. It was one of the top five trending collections for a whole month after it launched there. In the first week alone, it saw over 21,000 sales from more than 2,100 different traders. People still really like collecting those digital basketball moments, it seems.
Now, let’s talk about the FLOW token itself. It’s the native token, used for paying fees and staking (locking up tokens to help secure the network and earn rewards). In the first quarter, the price of FLOW went down. It fell 45.2% to $0.38. That’s a pretty big drop.
The total value of all the FLOW tokens out there, the circulating market capitalization, also went down by 44.5% to about $0.6 billion. The actual number of FLOW tokens circulating went up just a little, about 1.2%, hitting 1.57 billion. Because the price dropped, Flow’s ranking among other cryptocurrencies by market cap slipped a bit, from 89th to 92nd.
Even though the price went down, the average daily fees paid on the network actually went up by almost 50%, hitting $21.34. This is a bit counter-intuitive, isn’t it? Total fees for the quarter dropped in USD, but the average daily fee went up. It suggests that while overall activity might have shifted, the cost or nature of daily transactions changed.
Flow has a system where new FLOW tokens are created, or minted, regularly to pay out staking rewards. This adds about 5% to the total token supply each year. As of the end of March, the total supply was 1.57 billion FLOW. About 1.47 million new FLOW tokens were being created each week through this process.
People staking their FLOW tokens get most of these rewards, 92% of them. The computers running the network, called validator nodes, get the other 8% as a commission. The amount of FLOW being staked went down a bit in Q1, dropping 10.1% to 602.4 million FLOW. That’s still a good chunk, about 38.3% of the total supply.
Flow was built with the idea of being fully decentralized, meaning no single entity controls it. They’re working towards this step-by-step, following something called the Protocol Autonomy Roadmap. This plan aims to let anyone participate in running the network’s different parts without needing special permission.
Flow is a bit unique because it splits up the work of running the network into five different types of nodes (the computers that do the work). There are Collection, Consensus, Execution, Verification, and Access Nodes. This design lets them tweak things like security or how many transactions the network can handle for each specific job, instead of having one big, clunky system.
The roadmap includes upgrades to make the core parts of the network, like Consensus and Verification, more decentralized and secure. They are also adding a system where nodes that don’t follow the rules can lose some of their staked tokens, which is called slashing. Once these pieces are in place, the goal is for all the different node types to run pretty much on their own.
Getting connected to other blockchains was a big focus in Q1. Flow added bridges from LayerZero, Axelar, and deBridge. These join existing bridges like Flow Bridge and Celer cBridge. It’s like building more and more bridges over the digital rivers between blockchains.
Flow was actually the first chain to use a new tool from Axelar to build its bridge. LayerZero’s bridge lets Flow connect to over 100 chains using their messaging system. And deBridge came online in March, promising fast transactions and secure handling of digital assets. For developers building on Flow, this means it’s easier to move assets and users to and from Flow, making their apps more useful and reaching more people. It just makes things less of a hassle.
When you look at the apps built on Flow, they really lean into things people like to do – especially sports, games, and collecting digital stuff. They keep the ball rolling by partnering with big entertainment and sports names. NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day, with their officially licensed digital collectibles, were still the main attractions in Q1.
The NFT part of Flow is the busiest area on the network. The average number of NFT sales each day went up 7.8% in Q1, hitting 10,835 sales. But the average daily value of those sales in USD went down 8.8% to $111,582. So, more items were selling, but maybe the average price per item was a bit lower.
Flow has its own places to trade NFTs, called Flowverse and Flowty. Adding OpenSea to the mix in February was a big deal, letting users trade NFTs and earn points right there using their Flow Wallet. And when NBA Top Shot became tradable on OpenSea in March, it really took off, staying in the top trending list for a month. That first week saw over 21,000 sales from more than 2,100 traders. That’s a lot of digital dunking happening.
Besides the big sports names, Flow also has official digital collectibles for brands like Mattel’s Hot Wheels and Barbie. The trading volume for Hot Wheels Garage V2 went up a solid 85.7% in Q1. There are also Disney, Pixar, and Star Wars collectibles through something called Disney Pinnacle, Dr. Seuss collectibles called Seussibles, and even digital FuggClub plush toys. It’s a pretty diverse collection of digital toys and memorabilia.
But let’s be real, the trading volume for NFTs on Flow is mostly about NBA Top Shot and NFL All Day. Together, they made up 80.1% of all NFT trading volume in Q1, totaling $8.1 million. Activity on these tends to follow the real-world sports seasons, which makes sense.
NBA Top Shot is still the most active app on Flow. People buy digital “moments,” which are like video highlights, either in packs or by trading with others. In March alone, NBA Top Shot saw $2.25 million in secondary trading volume. For the whole quarter, it hit $5.60 million. NFL All Day is the same idea but for football moments. It did $2.53 million in trading volume in Q1.
Flow’s gaming scene started picking up in 2023. One game, the Metaverse Football League (MFL), is still the main game people talk about on Flow. It’s a soccer management game where you run a team, train players, and play matches. MFL saw $1.06 million in trading volume for its digital packs and players in Q1, which was up a huge 130% from the quarter before. People are really getting into managing their digital soccer teams.
There’s also FanCraze Cricket, where you collect digital video highlights called Crictos. They rolled out four big updates in Q1, making things like team rules simpler and adding features for minting and trading cards. UFC Strike is another one, an official marketplace for digital video highlights from the fighting championship. It saw $0.36 million in trading volume in Q1, a 63% jump from the previous quarter. So, digital sports and gaming collectibles are definitely a thing here.
Back to DeFi (decentralized finance). Flow’s TVL (Total Value Locked) went up 17.7% to $44.4 million. The number of DeFi projects holding most of that money went from three to four. KittyPunch, with its StableKitty project, really led the charge here. It’s like a few key players are holding most of the chips at the table.
These new places to put your crypto money led to more people using the EVM side of Flow. Daily transactions on Flow EVM went over 300,000 by the end of March. That shows the EVM compatibility is actually getting used.
Looking at the specific DeFi projects, Increment Finance still holds a big chunk of the TVL, but its amount went down 32.3% to $19.3 million. Trado Finance also saw its TVL drop 40.2% to $2.2 million. But KittyPunch? Its TVL exploded, climbing from $2.8 million to $19.2 million in Q1, a 585% jump! That gave it 43% of Flow’s total DeFi money. MORE Markets also saw huge growth, up 631% to $3.9 million, taking an 8.7% share. So, while some older players saw dips, new ones like KittyPunch and MORE Markets grew like weeds.
Some newer DeFi projects are popping up too. In Q1, some places for launching memecoins (those cryptocurrencies based on internet jokes) started showing up on Flow. Printr raised some early money and opened up ways to get its first “memes.” FlowFun also went live, offering a public spot to launch and trade these kinds of tokens. It’s interesting to see what new things people are trying to build on Flow.
Liquid staking, which is a way to stake your tokens while still being able to use them, saw its total value on Flow go down 38.4% to $10.9 million. Ankr’s ankrFLOW token held pretty steady at $6.1 million, giving it over half of that market. It seems like that specific area cooled off a bit.
Developer activity on Flow definitely picked up in Q1 2025. As mentioned, average weekly core engineers went up, and their code commits increased. But the really eye-popping number was the overall weekly developer growth across the whole ecosystem – that 89% jump was the highest among all Layer-1 blockchains. That’s like going from a small garage band to suddenly having a huge fan club showing up to jam.
Flow held a hackathon in Asia that brought in 350 people and resulted in 72 project ideas being submitted. Then there was the ETHGlobal Agentic Virtual Hackathon, which also drew builders. To keep that energy going after these events, Flow updated its website for developers in February. It seems like they are trying to make it easier for new people to come in and start building stuff.
Flow also has a program called Flow Community Rewards to get people more involved on the chain. The number of daily active addresses participating in this program more than doubled in Q1, going up 116% to about 36,000 by the end of March. It looks like giving people incentives is working to get them using the network more often.
Looking back at the quarter, Flow seems to be moving towards more DeFi action, a stronger group of developers, and becoming more decentralized. The total money locked up in DeFi stayed around $45 million, which is pretty stable.
NFT sales numbers went up, even though the trading volume in dollars was a bit mixed. NBA Top Shot and the gaming stuff like MFL, plus OpenSea coming on board, helped keep things busy on the collectibles side. Having the EVM part of Flow seems to be attracting builders and money without hurting the consumer apps that Flow is known for. The basic tools and infrastructure are getting better, and the rewards program is getting more people using the network. What happens in the next few months will show how well all these efforts work to bring in even more users and build a lively ecosystem on Flow.
