Gaming revenue rose despite weakness elsewhere, accounting for $3.3 billion of the consumer crypto sector’s $5 billion first-half total.
Crypto wallet and interface revenues fell 60% year over year to roughly $400 million in the first half of 2026.
This is according to a new report by 1kx, with the market insight provider noting that a rise in gambling and gaming income is what kept the decline in the wider consumer sector from being worse.
Wallet Income Falls as Gaming Takes a Larger Share
In the first half of 2025, wallet revenues hit about $1.1 billion, but the latest figures show it went down to approximately $400 million during the same period this year, with the roughly $700 million drop down mainly to lower trading activity and volatile crypto prices.
DePIN, short for decentralized physical infrastructure networks, also saw revenues slashed, dipping 10% from $293 million to $264 million.
The reduced income affected the wider consumer sector, which, in the first six months of 2026, ended up pulling in $5.0 billion, about $600 million, or 11% less than what it did in H1 last year.
According to 1kx, that smaller overall fall was largely due to gambling and gaming, whose revenues went up 8% to $3.3 billion after raking in about $3.1 billion in the same period last year. That category now accounts for the largest portion of the sector’s reported income.
“Overall resilience from gaming offsets wallet weakness, but highlights heavy reliance on volatile categories,” the account concluded.
Wallet Activity and Network Adoption Tell Different Stories
Elsewhere, other wallet-related metrics across major blockchains have shown mixed results. For instance, according to Santiment data, since mid-October, the Bitcoin network lost around 30,000 non-empty wallets, bringing the count to just under 60 million, something the analytics firm viewed as a possible sign of capitulation by smaller holders. That, it noted, created better conditions for BTC’s recovery than a sudden rush of buyers.
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Meanwhile, Ethereum presented a different picture, with data from the same source showing that its number of non-empty wallets reached well over 207 million in September, around the same time when the amount of staked ETH had risen above 40 million, with Santiment on that occasion suggesting the figures pointed to heightened network participation even after months of price action that was relatively weak.
Wallets usually earn revenue from charging swap or transaction fees alongside integrated DeFi services, and it should be noted that more addresses do not automatically translate into higher fees. What the H1 figures suggest is that wallet revenue was affected by trading conditions, with crypto gaming income being less exposed to any slowdowns.
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