- The total market capitalization of DeFi has crossed $90 billion.
- Uniswap, Chainlink, Wrapped Bitcoin, Terra and Aave make up the top five DeFi projects in terms of market capitalization.
- The top five DeFi projects account for a total of $46.68 billion of the existing market capitalization of DeFi.
- DeFi is an alternative to the traditional financial model and offers peer-to-peer finance enabled by applications built on Blockchain networks.
Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has made a confident statement since launching, exhibiting impressive growth and adaptability.
The ecosystem of financial applications built with Blockchain technology has offered users an open, non-custodial, decentralized and transparent alternative to traditional financial institutions.
Although it is still a relatively new phenomenon, the market capitalization of DeFi has grown to over $90 billion and here are the top five DeFi projects by market capitalization.
Uniswap
Uniswap is a decentralized trading protocol that seeks to guarantee liquidity for millions of users and a host of Ethereum applications.
Launched in 2018, Uniswap has gained a considerable following which has resulted in a market capitalization of $15.1 billion, placing it as the leading DeFi project in the world.
In 2020, Uniswap launched the UNI token based on ERC-20 and presently it trades at $29.12 making it the 8th largest cryptocurrency in the world, just above THETA and below XRP.
As a testament to Uniswap’s impressive growth, it reached its all-time high of $36.41 a week ago.
Chainlink
Chainlink holds the enviable position as the 2nd largest DeFi project with a market cap of $11.5 billion and trading at $27.82.
Founded in 2017 by Sergey Nazarov and Steve Ellis, Chainlink prides itself as a decentralized oracle network designed to link smart contracts and data from reality.
Like Uniswap, Chainlink is an ERC-20 token but has an additional ERC-223 transfer and call function that allows tokens to be received and processed in a single transaction.
Chainlink has a maximum supply of 1 billion LINK but only 416,009,556 LINK are in circulation.
Wrapped Bitcoin
Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) is a tokenized version of Bitcoin that operates on the Ethereum Blockchain and, like Chainlink and Uniswap, is also an ERC-20 token.
Founded by BitGo, Kyber Network and Ren, Wrapped Bitcoin is supported by Bitcoin at a 1:1 ratio because the price is pegged to Bitcoin. Currently, WBTC has a market capitalization of $8 billion.
On the Flipside
- DeFi project Yearn.Finance has severed its ties with Cover Protocol
- In November 2020 both projects reached an agreement to work together
- Following the divorce, Cover Protocol’s price slumped by a whopping 40%.
Terra
Terra’s (LUNA) growth in the crypto ecosystem is largely due to the interest DeFi has garnered over time.
Currently trading at $19.14, Terra has a market capitalization of $7.5 billion making it the fourth largest DeFi and the 18th largest cryptocurrency in the world.
Terra utilizes fiat-based stable coins to create stable pricing in the global payment system and was launched in April 2019.
Aave currently trades at $352.57 and has a market capitalization of $4.3 billion making it the fifth largest DeFi project. Founded by Stani Kulechov, Aave gives users the ability to borrow and lend cryptocurrencies on the platform without hassles. At the moment, there is a supply of 12,462,563 AAVE coins in circulation with a maximum supply of 16,000,000 AAVE coins.
