DeFi economic activity drops 15% in August —VanEck
The decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem has suffered more setbacks in August as on-chain economic activity dwindled. According to an analysis from investment manager firm VanEck, exchange volume declined to $52.8 billion in August, 15.5% lower than in July.
The findings are based on VanEck's MarketVector Decentralized Finance Leaders Index (MVDFLE), which tracks the performance of the largest and most liquid tokens on DeFi protocols, including Unisawp (UNI), Lido DAO (LDO), Maker (MKR), Aave (AAVE), THORchain (RUNE), and Curve DAO (CRV).
The DeFi Index underperformed Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) in August, falling 21% in the month, notes the report. The results were exacerbated by UNI token negative performance of 33.5%, as investors sold off tokens to capture gains from July.
Another key metric for the ecosystem, the total value locked (TVL) declined 8% in August, from $40.8 billion to $37.5 billion, slightly outperforming Ethereum’s 10% slump in the month.
Even though DeFi tokens had poor performance in August, the ecosystem witnessed positive developments throughout the month, argues the analysis. These developments include Uniswap Labs' dismissal of a class action lawsuit, and Maker and Curve's stablecoin growth.
Recovering from a major exploit in late July, Curve Finance's stablecoin crvUSD saw a significant growth in August, achieving a new all-time high of $114 million borrowed. CrvUSD is pegged to the U.S. dollar and relies on a collateralized-debt-position (CDP) model. Meaning users deposit collateral, such as ETH, to borrow crvUSD.
"The growth of crvUSD has allowed it to become a significant contributor of revenue for the platform, with crvUSD fees exceeding fees collected from all non-mainnet liquidity pools
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