Crypto Wallets' Revenue Craters 60% as Trading Activity Cools

Crypto wallets and interfaces are feeling the pinch. Revenue across the category dropped 60% year over year to about $400 million in the first half of 2026, a roughly $700 million slide from the $1.1 billion they banked in the same stretch a year earlier. Market insight provider 1kx credited the plunge mainly to softer trading activity and volatile crypto prices, according to a new report flagged by CryptoPotato.

The pain spread beyond wallets. DePIN — decentralized physical infrastructure networks — saw revenue slip 10%, now at $264 million, down from $293 million. That dragged the wider consumer sector down with it: the group pulled in $5.0 billion across the first six months of 2026, an 11% decline, or about $600 million less than H1 2025.

One bright spot kept the bleeding from getting worse. Gambling and gaming revenue climbed 8%, reaching $3.3 billion after bringing in roughly $3.1 billion a year prior. That category is now the single biggest slice of the sector's reported income. As 1kx put it, resilience from gaming offsets wallet weakness — but it also highlights a heavy reliance on volatile categories.

On-chain wallet metrics painted a mixed picture across the major chains. Santiment data shows the Bitcoin network shed around 30,000 non-empty wallets since mid-October, leaving the count just under 60 million. The analytics firm read that as a possible sign of capitulation among smaller holders — and argued it sets up better conditions for a BTC recovery than a sudden stampede of buyers.

Ethereum told the opposite story. The same source found its non-empty wallet count pushed past 207 million in September, right around the time staked ETH climbed above 40 million. Santiment said the numbers pointed to deeper network participation, even after months of relatively weak price action.

Here's the catch: wallets make their money off swap and transaction fees plus integrated DeFi services, and more addresses don't automatically mean fatter fee revenue. What the H1 numbers really show is a wallet business chained to trading conditions — while crypto gaming income, so far, has been far less exposed to the slowdown.