DeFi Value Locked Tops $13 Billion While Tokens Race to Recover

The DeFi sector has resumed its bullish momentum in terms of total value locked (TVL), which has hit a new record high of $13 billion as reported by DeFi Pulse. The metric has increased by over $2 billion since the beginning of November and is up a monumental 1,800% since the beginning of the year.

I'm not superstitious but let's just blow past $13B TVL… just in case 😉 pic.twitter.com/e1EFiKGjqm

— DeFi Pulse 🍇 (@defipulse) November 10, 2020

Bitcoin has taken a breather in the mid-$15,000 zone and attention has shifted back to DeFi following its two-month pullback.

Uniswap TVL Tops $3 Billion

Uniswap has become the first DeFi protocol to top $3 billion in terms of TVL, which has added 2.5% over the past 24 hours. Crypto collateral locked in various liquidity pools on the DEX has surged by around 1,700% over the previous 90 days. The majority of this value has been loaded into the four Ethereum-based liquidity pools which are farming UNI tokens. Around $2.36 billion is spread across these four pools, but token mining incentives will end on Nov 17 so there is likely to be a liquidity exodus from Uniswap when this occurs. Fees from each pool will still be accrued but there will no longer be a UNI distribution. It is likely that Uniswap will introduce alternative yield mining pools in order to keep the liquidity on the protocol, though there has yet to be any announcement on official channels. UNI prices themselves have gained a further 16% since yesterday, and are currently trading for $3.15. Since the same time last week, UNI has gained a whopping 62%, but it still remains more than 50% down from its all-time high. It seems unlikely at this point that the UNI token price will revisit those levels anytime soon, especially if there is a sell-off when farming ends next week.

DeFi Tokens Reawakened

UNI is not the only DeFi token cranking higher today. There are impressive gains across the board according to Messari’s DeFi returns tracker:

DeFi having a day

Top 3: $YAX + 73%$MTA + 35%$BZRX + 19% pic.twitter.com/km4jqZuSCX

— Messari (@MessariCrypto) November 10, 2020

yAxis’ YAX token is the top-performer, surging by over 90% yesterday, while Meta’s MTA token jumped 50% in the same period. Tokens from Curve, Loopring, UMA, Swerve, and even the embattled bZx Network have all made over 20% in the past 24 hours. Honorable mentions like SushiSwap, Yearn, Compound, Balancer, Bancor, and Aave are also seeing double-digit gains. Messari reports that the market capitalization for DeFi tokens has increased by 11% on the day and a whopping 47% over the past week as the recovery gathers steam.