The Web3 ecosystem has recently seen a dramatic rise in activity through total value locked in decentralized finance (“DeFi”), volumes on decentralized exchanges (“DEXs”), and stablecoin activity (see the Appendix). Looking at the first quarter of the year, we examine prominent events in the space, including:

Ki Young Ju, CEO of CryptoQuant, stated on social media that if there is a way to short BTC by holding some DeFi-wrapped BTC, the market size will be smaller than its TVL. This is only effective in bull markets where CeFi stablecoins are operated by hedge funds.

Data shows that the market value of DeFi tokens has surpassed $110 billion, currently at $111,229,433,647. The market value of ETH is $466,433,697,506, making the DeFi:ETH ratio 23.8%. DeFi TVL is $95,990,053,607 and the 24-hour trading volume for DeFi tokens is $11,647,059,165.

Bernstein analysts Gautam Chhugani and Mahika Sapra pointed out in their report on Monday that with Bitcoin approaching a historic high, DeFi will experience explosive (big bang) recovery. Their reasoning is that this round of market trends will bring more trading volume to various DEXs. With the introduction of token fee-sharing mechanisms represented by Uniswap and other DeFi protocols, DeFi will change from an unsustainable subsidy-based token economy in the previous cycle to a real revenue model.

On March 3rd, Deez Nuts' first Launchpad NFT project "LIGMA" series is about to go online. LIGMA is the first hybrid DeFi collectible on Solana that can change with the accumulation of token quantity. Every time a LIGMA is added, the held NFT will also change.

In February, a diverse group of crypto startups announced recent funding raises, signaling that investors’ interest in crypto may be on the rise again.

According to data from DefiLlama, the total value locked (TVL) in DeFi lending has surpassed $30 billion again, currently around $31.33 billion, reaching a new high since June 2022.

According to DefiLlama data, on February 27th, the total locked value (TVL) of DeFi protocols on the entire network exceeded 87.6 billion US dollars, an increase of 5.1% in the past 24 hours, including: Lido has the highest TVL, reaching 32.1 billion US dollars, an increase of 6.51% in the past 24 hours; AAVE ranks second, with a TVL of 9.3 billion US dollars, an increase of 7.83% in the past 24 hours; Maker ranks third, with a TVL of 9 billion US dollars, an increase of 4.77% in the past 24 hours.

According to DefiLlama data, the total value locked (TVL) of DeFi protocols across the entire network exceeded 81.1 billion US dollars on February 26, including: Lido has the highest TVL, reaching 30.1 billion US dollars, up 0.9% in the past 24 hours; AAVE ranks second, with a TVL of 8.6 billion US dollars, up 0.44% in the past 24 hours; Maker ranks third, with a TVL of 8.6 billion US dollars, down 1.4% in the past 24 hours.

According to DefiLlama data, on February 21st, the total locked value (TVL) of DeFi protocols across the network fell to 74.8 billion US dollars, a decrease of 1.11% in the past 24 hours, including:Lido has the highest TVL, at 28.6 billion US dollars, a decrease of 1.02% in the past 24 hours; Maker ranks second, with 8.5 billion US dollars, a decrease of 0.94% in the past 24 hours; AAVE ranks third, with 8.4 billion US dollars, a decrease of 1.54% in the past 24 hours.