The rising popularity of decentralized finance (DeFi) has brought fresh attention and optimism to the cryptocurrency sector with the total value locked on all protocols increasing from $1 billion to $59 billion in less than a year and the top 5 platforms accounting for $24.33 billion of the total value. Rising gas fees have been one of the most noticeable results of the increasing interaction with DeFi protocols and currently, the Ethereum (ETH) network hosts the majority of the top DeFi projects. Gas fees have been steadily rising since November 2020 and reached a peak on Feb. 23 when the …

Polygon-based DEX QuickSwap has attracted more than $105 million in worth of liquidity since the start of 2021. The Uniswap clone began the year with only $300,000 worth of assets locked in its protocol, with more than three quarters of the exchange’s total value locked being added in the past fortnight. QuickSwap is currently the leading second-layer decentralized exchange by daily volume with $38.5 million worth of trades over the past 24 hours. The second-largest L2 DEX by volume is Loopring with $8.4 million, followed by ZKSwap with $2.5 million. L2 DEX trading volume in the last 24hrs: 1 @QuickswapDEX …

The start of a new month has brought renewed fervor from the cryptocurrency market as Bitcoin's (BTC) price steadily climbed from a low of $43,537 on Feb. 28 to a high of $49,200 during Monday's early trading hours. As traders get excited about positive moves in the market and look to reenter positions, the increasing use of decentralized finance (DeFi) continues to drive fees on the Ethereum network higher, shining the spotlight on the top layer-two protocols that offer working solutions. Three protocols that have emerged as top layer-two contenders with working platforms are Polygon, xDai and Loopring. Each offers …

DeFi has steadily grown in prominence over the past year thanks in large part to the strong foundations established by decentralized exchanges (DEX) that enable easy access to the latest tokens and projects. While there have been previous iterations of DEX user interfaces, such as IDEX or Etherdelta, it wasn’t until Uniswap launched that trading in the DeFi network really took off and facilitated the launch of the finance tokens. Here are six of the top-performing tokens in the decentralized finance sector. UNI/USDT Uniswap has risen from the humble beginnings of a simple user interface that allowed for a token …

Ethereum-powered decentralized exchanges, or DEXes, continue to surge despite high transaction fees — with DEXes processing more than $120 billion in 2021 so far. According to Ethereum market analytics platform Dune Analytics, combined DEX volumes posted a new record of $63 billion in January. February's volume currently sits at $59 billion and is on track to hit $67 billion at the month’s end. DEXes have already processed more volume in the first two months of 2021 than during all previous years combined. The Ethereum-powered DEX sector is still dominated by Uniswap and Sushiswap, who account for 65% of February’s trade …

Cross-chain bridges and layer-two solutions have become an important topic of conversation in recent weeks as protocols compete to offer the best solution to skyrocketing transaction costs on the Ethereum network. While a lot of the focus in decentralized finance (DeFi) has been on the creation of a sprawling multichain ecosystem following the recent emergence of Binance Smart Chain and Avalanche, those who wish to stay on Ethereum have turned to layer-two solutions like Loopring as their preferred method of escape. A recent report from Delphi Digital has identified Loopring’s decentralized exchange (DEX) as one of the top layer-two contenders, …

Uniswap and SushiSwap have emerged as two of the top decentralized exchanges (DEXs) that are leading the current DeFi bull run higher. Despite a controversial start for SushiSwap, the last few months have seen it catching up to Uniswap in terms of activity on the platform, total value locked, and the price of its SUSHI governance token. A recent report from Delphi Digital took a closer look at the two projects and broke down the fundamental differences in the way that each has diverged in their development since SushiSwap’s vampire attack on Uniswap. SushiSwap originally emerged as a fork of …

Fresh institutional and retail investor inflows into the cryptocurrency market have led to bull market conditions for many top tokens from blue-chips like Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) to more recently established DeFi projects like AAVE and Synthetix (SNX). Exchange tokens are another easily overlooked sub-sector of the market but they have been performing exceptionally well in 2021 as increases in trading volumes results in a larger pool of fees to collect when the exchange’s native token is used for settlement. Native exchange tokens are also typically used as the base pair for funding new listings and token buybacks. Here …

As decentralized finance continues to increase it hold on the wider cryptocurrency market, Binance Smart Chain (BSC) is beginning to emerge as a suitable option for traders looking to escape from high transaction fees on the Ethereum (ETH) network. With more attention being paid to BSC, DeFi projects operating on the chain have also seen an influx of buying activity in recent weeks as token holders rush to supply liquidity for recently launched protocols. One such project is Venus (XVS), an algorithmic money market and synthetic stablecoin protocol designed specifically for the BSC. Data from Cointelegraph Markets and TradingView shows …

Uniswap’s decentralized exchange reached a major milestone on Monday as cumulative trade volumes surpassed $100 billion in the wake of the decentralized finance boom. Hayden Adams, Uniswap’s CEO, tweeted Monday that the platform became the first decentralized exchange to process over $100 billion in transactions. Using data from Dune Analytics, Adams showed cumulative volumes of $101.5 billion as of Monday. The chart highlights Uniswap’s dramatic growth since mid-2020 when the first DeFi bull market began. @Uniswap just became the first decentralized trading platform to process over $100b in volume - an exciting milestone for DeFi pic.twitter.com/hUoM36aG6A — Hayden Adams (@haydenzadams) …

While Bitcoin (BTC) has been in the spotlight since the start of the year, and even more so given the recent $1.5-billion Tesla purchase, Ether has not been lagging behind. Ether (ETH) is currently sitting at $1,800, and its network has now processed over 1 billion transactions, mostly on the back of the DeFi sector and also due to growing institutional engagement. According to Lanre Jonathan Ige, research associate at 21Shares — a European issuer of crypto Exchange Traded Products — “Investors understand that Bitcoin is part of a wider asset class and are now attempting to diversify past Bitcoin.” …

The total value locked in decentralized finance — a measure of the total value of assets committed to the DeFi ecosystem —has marked a new all-time high close to $40 billion. According to DeFi Pulse, the figure hit the $39.79 billion mark on the morning of Feb. 10. While the bullish milestone is undoubtedly a reflection of soaring prices across the crypto markets, as a metric, total value locked, or TVL, gives a somewhat crude picture of what is actually going on in the world of DeFi. This is because the metric largely ends up tracking the surface impact of …