Two Ethereum Altcoins Leading New Resurgence of DeFi, According to Glassnode

Two coins from the Ethereum (ETH) ecosystem are leading the charge of a new resurgence in decentralized finance (DeFi), according to blockchain analytics firm Glassnode.

In a new report, Glassnode says that its DeFi index, which consists of the eight largest DeFi tokens by market cap, has outperformed Ethereum over the last two months for the first time since September 2022.

Zooming in on the index, Glassnode says that two tokens are standing out as the primary drivers of the trend: the stablecoin governance token Maker (MKR) and the native currency of the smart contract DeFi protocol Compound (COMP).

The firm says the strong performance of the two altcoins may be linked to recent fundamental developments for the two crypto projects.

“Upon closer examination, we can see that the performance may well be closely related to new project fundamentals, rather than wider market developments.

On June 28th, Compound’s founder and CEO, Robert Leshner, announced his departure from the lending protocol as well as the launch of a new project that focuses on bringing regulated finance to blockchain networks. Following this announcement, the COMP token surged by up to 83% in one week.

Around the same time, MakerDAO activated its Smart Burn Engine, a buyback program which uses excess [stablecoin] DAI owned by the protocol to purchase MKR from a Uniswap pool. The prospect of removing approximately $7 million worth of MKR in one month caused the token’s price to increase by up to 43% on the week.”

Messari also says there has been a resurgence in decentralized exchanges (DEXes), highlighting a surge in market share versus its centralized counterparts.

“By examining the DEX vs. CEX exchange flows for the top eight DeFi tokens, we can see a renewed interest in DEX activity. The relative share of volume traded on DEXs has increased from 3.75% at the beginning of June to 29.2% today, close to the highs seen during the second half of 2022.”