Decentralized Finance (DeFi) tokens are back on the rise

After surging over the summer and crashing in September 2020, decentralized finance (DeFi) tokens are back on the rise. Since December 1st 2020 Uniswap (UNI), Aave (AAVE), Synthetix (SNX), MakerDAO (MKR), SushiSwap (SUSHI), and Curve (CRV) have all outperformed ETH and BTC. 

DeFi development has been progressing rapidly since Q4 2020. Synthetic recently announced the initial steps of an integration with the Optimistic Virtual Machine (OVM), a new solution to help with scalability and reduce Ethereum transaction fees. Yearn.finance (YFI) is working on V2 of their platform and recently released an updated version of their vaults. And the Uniswap team is hard at work on Uniswap V3, which is rumored to improve slippage and potentially address high transaction fees. Uniswap trading volume has surged in early 2021 (as seen in the below chart) to similar levels as September 2020.