Ethereum’s decentralized finance (DeFi) sector appears to have benefited from the criticism and threats from regulators and brokers halting trading in certain stocks, and is now picking up steam once again.
DeFi Pulse data shows, the Total Value Locked (TVL) of the Ethereum DeFi ecosystem has risen to $26.5 billion in recent days. MakerDAO is the protocol with the highest TVL at $4.66 billion. Followed by Aave with $3.84 billion, Compound at $3.26 billion, and Uniswap at $3.13 billion.
In addition to the overall rise in TVL, there was a rise in price of numerous major DeFi tokens over the last week. Compound, Uniswap, and SushiSwap all reached all-time highs. While tokens from protocols such as Alpha Homora, 1linch, Luna, and Rune also saw great performances as well according to data from ConiGecko.
Galaxy Digital co-founder Mike Novogratz says that he believes young retail investors are eager to see a change in the financial system. “Its a large group of people saying they don’t want Citadel preying on their orders from RH. They don’t want IPO’s being allocated to insiders, they don’t like a system geared to the already rich. This is a giant endorsement of DeFi.”
DeFi Revolution
Furthermore, Novogratz believes the DeFi sector will be the epicenter of a revolution that will move investors to DeFi protocols. “It’s a revolution that started with people not trusting central authority. It’s a call for transparency and fairness. It makes me more bullish crypto but more importantly more focused and committed to systems change.”
Uniswap and SushiSwap could be in position to receive the most attention from investors coming over to DeFi. Their governance model, resistance to censorship, and the incentives they offer to users who provide liquidity have already put these protocols among the most widely used in the DeFi sector with growth that could continue to increase.
Uniswap has underperformed, but has risen significantly over the past month. A 290.3% increase including 113.6% over the last two weeks. In that period, Uniswap has recorded an all-time high of $30 billion in trading volume.
